AUSTRALIA: There’s Beauty in Every Box
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…or perhaps it’s in a box. Bellabox, an Australian beauty subscription service, received over $3 million in backing from Allure Media, digital publisher of PopSugar and Shopstyle. With the help of Allure Media’s funding, bellabox will expand its…
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SRI LANKA: Time for an Upgrade!
PEYTON CROSS WRITES – With the recent release of the iPhone 6, millions of Americans are preparing for a technological upgrade. More than 9,000 miles away, Sri Lanka is also gearing up for its own IT reboot. On September 14, the Colombo Page reported that the Sri Lankan government plans to…
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YOUNG JAPAN: Looking Westward – The Kickstarter Phenomenon
JEREMIAH FAJARDO WRITES – From potato salad to Oscar nominated films, the popular crowd-funding site Kickstarter has been at the forefront of rethinking project funding. Surprisingly, some of the most successful campaigns have come from Japan’s risk-averse entertainment industry. The time for change has come and it’s in the hands…
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LOS ANGELES: Hollywood Gearing-up for LA EigaFest
DYLAN FIELDS WRITES – This weekend the Japan Film Society hosts the 4th annual Los Angeles EigaFest, showcasing contemporary Japanese cinema in the US. A portmanteau of the Japanese word for film (eiga) and ‘festival,’ the name signifies its objectives to “showcase Japanese and Japanese-influenced films that appeal to the…
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AUSTRALIA: Ahoy! Internet piracy to ‘walk the plank’
AMBER VERNETTI WRITES – To thwart digital pirates, the Australian government has put forward a plan to keep websites from hosting copyrighted material. Aussie creative types and the media say ‘Bravo’. The Media, Entertainment, and Arts Alliance (MEAA), a union representing artists, film makers, journalists and other creators, say they…
Full Article AUSTRALIA: Ahoy! Internet piracy to ‘walk the plank’JAPAN: Will Sell Body for Education
LEXIE TUCKER WRITES – Paying for college isn’t easy. Either you were lucky enough to have parents who started saving from the time you were born, or you’re forced to take out loans in ungodly amounts to help fund your outrageously expensive education. Of course, part-time jobs are an option. You…
Full Article JAPAN: Will Sell Body for EducationNEW CHINA BOOK: The Straits Times Review
ASAD LATIF, WRITING FOR THE STRAITS TIMES, SINGAPORE – The veteran American journalist Tom Plate’s writings on Asia have contributed significantly to raising the region’s profile in his home country. His books on Asian leaders such as Mr Lee Kuan Yew and Dr Mahathir Mohamad sought to explain the reasons…
Full Article NEW CHINA BOOK: The Straits Times ReviewSINGAPORE: Angry Citizens Try to Stomp Out Popular Blogging Platform
ASIA MEDIA STAFF WRITES – It’s no secret that Singapore news media is not exactly free. That said, controls on the nation’s journalists have eased over the years, and today’s environment is far looser than a decade ago. This has led to a unique brand of Singaporean citizen journalism found most…
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VIETNAM: Soft Light Illuminates Faces Behind Bars
YVONNE EPPS WRITES—No one, it seems, can escape the far-reaching grasp of the Internet. Vietnamese authorities thought they could lock away dissidents, but their fingers keep tapping and a scene emerges that looks eerily similar to African Americans during the 1960s Civil Rights era. According to TuoiTreNews, it’s now apparent that prisoners have…
Full Article VIETNAM: Soft Light Illuminates Faces Behind BarsNORTH KOREA: Professional Wrestlers Tackle Isolation
RYAN LIPPERT WRITES – Could sports succeed where years of diplomacy have fallen flat? On the heels of Dennis Rodman’s visits to the Hermit Kingdom, an international group of wrestlers, including athletes from Japan and the US, journeyed to North Korea recently to compete in a match before thousands of…
Full Article NORTH KOREA: Professional Wrestlers Tackle IsolationHONG KONG: SPLITTING DIFFERENCES, MOVING FORWARD
THIS SYNDICATED COLUMN ON POLITICAL TURMOIL IN HONG KONG WAS PUBLISHED 8 SEPTEMBER IN THE ‘SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST’, HONG KONG’S LEAD NEWSPAPER. A VERY SIMILAR VERSION WAS PUBLISHED 10 SEPTEMBER IN ‘CHINA DAILY’, THE LEADING ENGLISH-LANGUAGE DAILY OF CHINA: “Hong Kong is one of the world’s great metropolises, most…
Full Article HONG KONG: SPLITTING DIFFERENCES, MOVING FORWARDMANDARIN: A JOKE FROM CONAN
CONAN O’BRIEN JOKED ON HIS LATE-NIGHT SHOW ABOUT A TRUE NEWS STORY – “An English-speaking man went into a coma and came out speaking only Mandarin Chinese. It’s a true story. On the bright side, now he can find work.” We LIKE!
Full Article MANDARIN: A JOKE FROM CONANLIFE LESSONS: NEVER GIVE UP!
The following column by Tom Plate appeared in the well-known newspaper KOREA TIMES of Seoul on 4 September: LOS ANGELES ― Life can make for strange but true comparisons. Here are three public figures for whom I have great admiration. On the surface they have very little in common except…
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LOS ANGELES: 2014 U.S.-China Summit & Gala Dinner
Join the Asia Society Southern California for an exciting evening to celebrate the U.S.-China Film Relationship. As in the past, the Gala Dinner will feature high-profile honorees and guests from China and the U.S. This year’s full-day conference will draw on the Film Summit’s roots in U.S.-China co-production.…
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A Sane Man Facing the Insanity
America’s 44th president is often cruelly hit, if sometimes quietly and behind his back, with the wicked “w” word. For many angry or disappointed people — here and abroad — that word is: “wimp.” It is hurled in the direction of the White House of Barack Hussein Obama as an…
Full Article A Sane Man Facing the InsanityJAPAN: Revealing the Facts or Covering Tracks?
LEXIE TUCKER WRITES – Retracting a story is a bold move in the field of journalism and tends to suggest a lack of research. On August 5, The Asahi Shinbun decided to retract not one story, but all stories that included a quote made by a Japanese man who claimed…
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