From Asia Media International in Los Angeles — Congratulations, Hong Kong! Under conditions of the greatest stress, you have pulled off a mainly spotless and brilliant territory-wide election whose results resonate worldwide. Clean and clear elections are not that easy to pull off. (We in the U.S. are learning more…
DIANA CASTILLO WRITES- Just to bring us all up to date: In Hong Kong, an extradition bill was introduced in April that could have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China, where they could have faced unfair trials and been subjected to violence. In addition, the extradition bill…
ASIA MEDIA WRITES – The following succinct commentary was solicited by the editors of USA Today and provided by our founder and president, Prof Tom Plate. It was published in this well-known national newspaper on Thursday 15-16 August. Please see: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/08/15/donald-trump-right-china-over-hong-kong-editorials-debates/2024883001/ TEXT By Tom Plate The notion that the U.S. should…
TOM PLATE WRITES — How should citizens react when Big Government does a bad thing that screams out for correction? One approach is to slip into denial and imagine nothing at all happened, because leaders are apt to err, so the best thing for your mental health is to look…
YI NING WONG WRITES — The month of May marks Asian Pacific Heritage Month. Last week, I had the opportunity to chat with team members from a recent animation about street foods, culture, and family in Hong Kong: Front of the House. Director Sum Yi “Ashley” Ma and Sound Director…
TOM PLATE WRITES – In coming months look for broad gripes and bright anti-red stars over the land of the free, not to mention the home of the brave. The “Committee on the Present Danger: China” – cliché bombs bursting in the media air – begins its anti-communist show in the…
NICOLE ALAVERDIAN WRITES– As the world scrambles to adopt more environmentally friendly practices, there is one overlooked culprit of climate change: animal agriculture. Despite a recent wave of vegetarian, vegan and plant-based food offerings in the Asian-Pacific, a study by the Food Service Consultants Society predicts that in Asia “the…
“To have another language is to possess a second soul.” – Charlemagne ANAS ALZAHRANI WRITES — When non-native English speakers decide to learn English in a different country, the first locations that come to mind are the U.S and England, where English is the first language. Command over the English…
YI NING WONG writes – Hong Kong’s infamous city Lan Kwai Fong is well known for manifesting the city’s bustling spirit into a unique nightlife culture. Popular bars and clubs are only a few feet away from each other, attracting endless crowds and earning the city a reputation as Hong…
KATELYNN BARKLEY WRITES — To protest or not to protest? In Hong Kong, this has become a loaded question. On August 17, Hong Kong’s high court sentenced the pro-democratic, Umbrella Movement leaders, Alex Chow, Nathan Law and Joshua Wong, to several months in jail. The Chinese media has branded the…
YI NING WONG WRITES – Netflix Original, Joshua: Teenager vs. Superpower, tells the story of young Hong Kong activist, Joshua Wong, as he leads the infamous Umbrella Revolution against China in 2014. Directed by Joe Piscatella, the docufiction keeps its viewers interested, featuring the inception of a student organized pro-democracy…
TOM PLATE WRITES – The rude acidity of the Trump administration’s slap-down of the largely symbolic Paris Climate Accord has stung eyes and optimisms around the world. We move from having a U.S. president known for “leading from behind,” as the Obama hyper-caution was termed, to a successor who proposes…
Excerpted courtesy of the South China Morning Post — Visiting state leader , from Beijing, warned everyone would have to pay the price if Hong Kong became chaotic, in a 20-minute speech to more than 220 representatives from various sectors at the government headquarters this morning. “We are all in the…
MIRANDA PAK WRITES – Imagine a Hong Kong taxi driver’s income shrinking significantly because he cannot speak Mandarin. This scenario is one of five short films in the Hong Kong indie movie Ten Years. The local, low budget film visualizes Hong Kong in 2025, “[depicting a radicalized] future in which…
MIRANDA PAK WRITES – The U.S. this week (Feb. 2) joined calls for Chinese authorities to release five Hong Kong booksellers whose main crime appears to have been embarrassing Communist Party officials. What’s proving the bigger embarrassment is that no one doubts it is Beijing behind the kidnapping/detentions. Since October,…
MIRANDA PAK WRITES – Today, it’s not uncommon for people to rely on cloud or file-sharing services, such as Dropbox or Google Drive, to store documents. A ‘cloud’ is basically a service where people make an account and upload documents and, once uploaded, they can be accessed anywhere on any device with Internet connection.…
