Join the Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics for an exciting and candid conversation with Seungyeon Chang, former leader of CLC and now a professional K-pop choreographer.
Have you ever wondered what it’s really like to be a K-pop idol?
From trainee days to debut stages, world tours and transitioning into choreography, Seungyeon will share her personal journey in the K-pop industry. Learn about the challenges, rewards, behind-the-scenes realities and what it truly takes to succeed as an idol.
This is your chance to:
- Ask questions about idol life and training
- Hear firsthand stories from the stage and studio
- Gain insight into the K-pop industry from someone who has lived it
Whether you’re a longtime K-pop fan or simply curious about the industry, don’t miss this unique opportunity for an engaging and inspiring conversation.
It runs from 3:30 to 4:30 pm in Hamerschlag Hall B103 (map).
Live streaming has reshaped social relations, cultural production, and daily life—especially in China, where the industry surpasses Western counterparts in scale, genre diversity, and revenue. This lecture examines labor relations in China’s entertainment live streaming sector, arguing that state authorities and private platforms jointly regulate desire for political control and profit.
Through Hao Wu’s People’s Republic of Desire (2018), it shows how physical and affective labor become emotional commodities circulating across platforms. Drawing on Jean-François Lyotard’s “libidinal economy” and Thomas Lamarre’s “platformativity,” it argues that platforms fuse the political, economic, and psychic to sustain a “tittytainment” economy that masks exploitation.
Don’t miss this wild and buzzy new film from Park Chan-wook! After being laid off and humiliated by a ruthless job market, a veteran paper mill manager descends into violence in a desperate bid to reclaim his dignity.Tickets are available online. The Row House Cinema is a single-screen theater located at 4115 Butler St. in Lawrenceville (map)
Photo via the Korea Tourism Organization.
S.A.M, or Seriously Addictive Mathematics, is a Mathematics Learning Program from Singapore, with a unique Mathematics curriculum designed for students from 4 to 12 years of age.Our curriculum is primarily modelled after the Singapore Mathematics program, which is one of the most successful in the world, according to the TIMSS (Trends in International Maths & Science Study) survey, since 1995*.The Pittsburgh center will be located at 2002 Murray Ave. (map), in what was most recently Rewind Memories, and offers programs in Mathematics and Phonics & English. It will be open weekday evenings and from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm on Saturdays. More information is available at the S.A.M. website.
We developed over 30,000 pages of meticulously designed self learning worksheets with a unique step up approach, covering everything your child needs to know in order to excel in Mathematics at school. We also designed a comprehensive S.A.M Training system to ensure that our Trainers deliver a quality learning experience for your child.Research has shown that Early Exposure to math concepts and skills will enhance your child’s confidence in Maths in their later years. SAM’s Holistic Approach to Mathematics combines Classroom Learning and Worksheets Practice to give your child an early advantage in Singapore Maths to stay ahead of their cohort.
Join the Department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics for a special screening of 3670, a 2025 South Korean film directed by Park Joon-ho.
3670 tells the powerful story of Cheol-jun, a North Korean defector living in Seoul, as he struggles to find his place within the city’s gay community. Through an intimate and deeply human lens, the film explores themes of identity, belonging, displacement and resilience.
This is a rare opportunity to experience 3670 on the big screen. The film is not yet available on any streaming platforms in the United States and is currently only being shown at select movie festivals.
Following the screening, attendees will have the opportunity to participate in a live Zoom Q&A session with director Park Joon-ho, offering insight into the filmmaking process, the story behind the film and the themes it explores.
Don’t miss this exclusive event — an evening of meaningful cinema and conversation.
The event runs from 3:30 to 7:00 pm in Hamerschlag Hall B103 (map) and is free and open to the public.
Pop Royalty BTS returns to the global stage with their highly anticipated world tour, marking their first large-scale tour in approximately four years. Spanning 34 cities across the world with a total of 82 shows, the tour opens with landmark concerts in Goyang, South Korea, and Tokyo, Japan, marking a new record for the most tour dates by a K-pop artist. Don’t miss your chance to experience two full-length concerts, presented live in cinemas worldwide. Titled ARIRANG, BTS’s world tour accompanies their fifth full-length album, which reflects the group’s identity through honest introspection and universal emotions such as longing and deep love, woven into music that defines them on their own terms. Featuring a spectacular 360-degree in-the-round stage design, the show delivers an immersive experience that places audiences at the very center of the performance. Share the electrifying moments of BTS’s defining cultural comeback together on the big screen worldwide.It will play locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and the Cinemark theaters in Monaca, Monroeville, North Hills, and Robinson. Shows are 4:00 pm and 7:45 pm, and tickets are available online.
It is a tradition for all young witches to leave their families on the night of a full moon and fly off into the wide world to learn their craft. When that night comes for Kiki, she embarks on her new journey with her sarcastic black cat, Jiji, landing the next morning in a seaside village, where her unique skills make her an instant sensation. Don’t miss this delightfully imaginative and timeless story of a young girl finding her way in the world[.]It is scheduled to play locally, so far, at the AMC Loews Waterfront, and tickets went on sale today.
Pop Royalty BTS returns to the global stage with their highly anticipated world tour, marking their first large-scale tour in approximately four years. Spanning 34 cities across the world with a total of 82 shows, the tour opens with landmark concerts in Goyang, South Korea, and Tokyo, Japan, marking a new record for the most tour dates by a K-pop artist. Don’t miss your chance to experience two full-length concerts, presented live in cinemas worldwide. Titled ARIRANG, BTS’s world tour accompanies their fifth full-length album, which reflects the group’s identity through honest introspection and universal emotions such as longing and deep love, woven into music that defines them on their own terms. Featuring a spectacular 360-degree in-the-round stage design, the show delivers an immersive experience that places audiences at the very center of the performance. Share the electrifying moments of BTS’s defining cultural comeback together on the big screen worldwide.It will play locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and the Cinemark theaters in Monaca, Monroeville, North Hills, and Robinson. Shows are 4:00 pm and 7:45 pm, and tickets are available online.
Photo via Brookline Today Facebook group.
The Demon Slayer Corps plunge into Infinity Castle to defeat Muzan. However, the remaining Hashiras and the Demon Slayers who survived Tanjiro's Final Selection are pitted against the remaining members of the Twelve Kizuki first.It will play locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and the Cinemark theater in Robinson, and tickets are available online.
After the final stage at Bayanbulak, Zhang Chi (played by Shen Teng) is invited to compete in a brand-new event, the “Muchen 100 Rally,” as the head coach of the team. The once “wild” racer now steps onto the international stage. Facing a completely new course filled with top-tier competitors, Sun Yuqiang (played by Yin Zheng) and Ji Xing (played by Zhang Benyu) once again fight side by side with Zhang Chi. Powerful drivers such as Lin Zhendong (played by Huang Jingyu) are also invited to join, and a team built on top-level speed and shared belief is formed. However, Zhang Chi soon realizes that the true challenge does not seem to come from the race itself. Beneath the surface, tensions are rising beyond the track, casting uncertainty over their high-speed journey ahead.It plays locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and tickets are available online.
After witnessing Fuji Kiseki win a race, young Jungle Pocket is inspired to become the fastest horse girl alive. Training alongside Fuji and her veteran trainer, Pocket's goal looks to be within reach—right up until she encounters Agnes Tachyon. In the face of Tachyon's impossible speed and polar opposite personality, beating Tachyon becomes an obsession. But all too soon, that obsession becomes a looming specter—the final barrier that stands between Pocket and her dream.It plays locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and AMC Westmoreland in Greensburg, and tickets are available online.
There's a little sadness in letting go but there's plenty of beauty in starting over. Squirrel Hill was home to 2 of my businesses the last 14 years. This community has welcomed me with open arms as I introduced Vietnamese cuisine to the neighborhood with the opening of Tan Lac Vien in 2012. It was my first dine-in restaurant where i Offered more unique and authentic dishes. I had a great run. In 2023 I decided to down size to what is currently Viet Nom Nom. It was a fun, quirky and cozy spot. I offered quick and casual dine-in where I served no fuss dishes. I will forever be grateful for the patronage and friendships that I have created here over the years. I am honored to have served the Squirrel Hill community. Life is filled with changes and I have to allow my new priorities to align with my home and work balance. A reset is deeply desired, but Please don't worry because if any of you know me, you'll know that I am a "serial entrepreneur " - to be continued...It opened January 2023 at 1711 Murray Ave (map).
Stop by any time during this drop-in bookbinding workshop to make and take home an exclusive chapbook featuring images and writing about the exhibition. No experience necessary. Please register so we can plan materials accordingly.The event runs from 1:00 to 4:00 pm. Registration is required. Bunker Projects is an art gallery located at 5106 Penn Ave. in Bloomfield (map).
Your Cult-O-Rama hosts are priming you for the upcoming 10th Annual Japanese Film Festival with the first-ever all foreign language double feature! In the history of this program, we’ve never asked you to read; now there’s subtitles, but the same amount of wild stuff happening on the screen above it.
Wolf Guy (1975) – The legendary Sonny Chiba plays a private detective who gets mixed up in gritty city yakuza nonsense. This could be a lot more challenging if he wasn’t also the last-remaining descendant in a long line of lycanthropes who can use his paranormal powers to solve crimes and do other neat stuff (like use his mind to remove his own disembowelment). But will he be able to stop the CIA from harvesting his blood to steal his werewolf juice? You’re just gonna have to watch to find out! (Please note that Wolf Guy contains a scene of sexual assault.)
The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968) – While American audiences were distracted by Romero’s introduction of zombies and what was going on with Rosemary’s kid, Japanese horror was firing on all cylinders. One of their offerings was this weird tale of a girl who gets reunited with her family after living at an orphanage for most of her life! It sounds heartwarming, right? It could be, but her mom seems to have a bad case of the forgets and her sister seems… reptilian.
The double-feature starts at 9:00 pm and runs for 200 minutes. Tickets are available online. The Row House Cinema is a single-screen theater located at 4115 Butler St. in Lawrenceville (map)
In March 1974, Lt. Onoda Hiroo emerged from the jungle on the Philippine island of Lubang, where he had been hiding for almost three decades after the end of the Pacific War. He immediately became a worldwide media sensation as an exemplar of samurai-like devotion to duty. Moved by his story and the tragedy of a life wasted for a fruitless war, jazz composer Toshiko Akiyoshi dedicated a composition to him. Entitled “Kogun” (lone soldier), the piece drew on thematic and narrative elements of medieval nō theater, situated within a jazz orchestral setting, to highlight this tragedy, thereby bringing to fruition her desire to create a seamless “blend” (yūgō) of Japanese music and the jazz idiom. This presentation also blends conventional cultural historical and musical analysis to argue for the landmark status of “Kogun” within jazz history.
E. Taylor Atkins is Distinguished Teaching Professor of History at Northern Illinois University. His major publications include Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabackin Big Band’s Kogun (2024); A History of Popular Culture in Japan, From the Seventeenth Century to the Present (second edition, 2022); Primitive Selves: Koreana in the Japanese Colonial Gaze, 1910-1945 (2010); Jazz Planet (editor, 2003); and Blue Nippon: Authenticating Jazz in Japan (2001), winner of the Association for Asian Studies’ John Whitney Hall Prize. He also plays bass for the Jazz in Progress Big Band and the Wild Blue Ukulele Orchestra and produces and hosts House of Funk on Hot Rocks Radio.
Set within the walls of a mental asylum in Japan, the film follows the story of a janitor (Masao Inoue) who takes a job at the institution in order to be closer to his wife (Yoshie Nakagawa), a former performer who has been institutionalized after suffering a mental breakdown. As the janitor navigates the eerie corridors of the asylum, he encounters a cast of characters haunted by their own inner demons, including patients, doctors, and nurses.It will play at 6:30 pm in Frick Fine Arts (map) and is free and open to the public.
The year is 2012. The once-glamourous Club EJ suddenly experiences a hostile takeover. Much like the nightclub industry, the glory days are over for the club’s manager, Foon (Dayo Wong), despite having stood tall in East Tsim Sha Tsui for decades. To make things worse for Foon, the club’s new CEO is none other than his cutthroat ex-wife, Madame V (Sammi Cheng)! Determined to change things up, she leaves Foon and his hostesses with no choice but to transform and modernize in order to breathe new life into their business. Little did they know, a powerful conglomerate had been pulling the strings all along to shut down Club EJ for good. To save their neon empire, Foon and V must join forces and make an epic last stand with the hostesses against what seems to be inevitable doom.It plays locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and tickets are available online.
A major breach of China’s classified intelligence triggers an urgent response from a national security unit, determined to expose the traitor behind it. However, successive arrest missions suffer severe setbacks, driving tensions ever higher. As the investigation deepens, suspicion unexpectedly turns inward—toward members of the task force itself. Caught in a vortex of trust and betrayal, a silent struggle quietly unfolds.It plays locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and tickets are available online.
Dao Ma, the "second most wanted fugitive," who is entrusted by his benefactor, the chief of Mo family clan, to take on a mysterious escort mission-escorting the "most wanted fugitive," to Chang'an.It plays locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront and tickets are available online.
Peel is soft opening this Friday 2/20/26, 12pm - 11pm!! on 2nd floor @ 5806 Forbes Ave
We’re beta testing so free tea after 8pm on Fri in exchange 4 ur thoughts, come hang 🌀🌀🌀
*We’ll be in beta testing/soft open mode for the next two weeks for us to find grounding, hours are as follows:
Mon to Tue: closed
Wed to Thurs: 12pm- 10pm
Fri to Sun: 12pm - 11pm
Signage went up for the Chinese-owned place in January, though work has been underway for nearly a year. It is located at 5806 Forbes Ave., second floor, above Uncle Sam's (map). The text on social media, and the front-door signage, says Peel
is a (tea)house for drinks, eats, inquiries & play
In light of recent events directly impacting the safety and well-being of our
migrant and immigrant community members and allies, we have made the
difficult decision to cancel our Squirrel Hill Lunar New Year Celebration
to ensure the safety of all who would attend. However, this does not mean
we will stop celebrating the beautiful traditions that enrich our community.
A Different Tradition: Bring Lunar New Year Wishes to
Squirrel Hill's Trees
For years, students at a local school have observed the beautiful Lunar New
Year tradition of each child writing two wishes on red tags. One wish is for
themselves and one is for the community. The tags are hung from trees around
their school. As one wise 4th grader put it, it's a way to say to our Asian
community, "We see you, we appreciate you, and we think you're awesome!"
This Lunar New Year, let's spread this tradition across all of Squirrel Hill! In
honor and celebration with our Asian neighbors, let’s fill the trees throughout
Squirrel Hill with bright red tags carrying wishes of prosperity, health, and joy
for the year ahead! Thanks to Mardi Isler’s tireless work expanding our tree
canopy, we have plenty of trees ready to bloom with good wishes and
community solidarity.
How to participate:
● SHUC will have red Lunar New Year tags available for pickup at the Silk
Elephant or the SHUC Office. Email mcohen@shuc.org if you'd like to
volunteer to help distribute them throughout our neighborhood
● You can also start this tradition on your own! Hang red tags with wishes
on trees in your neighborhood and share the tradition with neighbors!
● Need tags? Click here to find red Lunar New Year tags on Amazon
Homecoming: The Tokyo Series explores Japan’s profound bond with baseball, culminating in the 2025 MLB Opening Day games in Tokyo, when hometown heroes Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shota Imanaga, Seiya Suzuki, and Roki Sasaki return to the field where their journeys began. Through the lives of those shaped by the game, the film reveals how baseball bridges generations, shapes identity, and illuminates the connection between tradition and modern life. More than a chronicle of a sporting event, it is a portrait of a nation’s enduring love for baseball and the pride of watching its stars come home. Alongside the film, the filmmakers captured man-on-the-street interviews with American fans inside the Tokyo Dome who traveled to Japan for the games.It is scheduled to play locally at the AMC Loews Waterfront, the AMC Westmoreland in Greensburg, the GQT Cinemas at the Pittsburgh Mills, and the Cinemark theaters in McCandless and Robinson. Tickets are available online.
The 2026 festival will put a special focus on the Cult Cinema of Japan through film selections and special events.Films announced thus far for the 11th annual festival:
Though many of us are still reeling from her explosive debut novel, Chlorine, a force like Jade Song cannot be stopped. We are thrilled to welcome Pittsburgh-native Jade back to City of Asylum for the launch of her sophomore novel, I Love You Don’t Die, a coming-of-age for a new generation, in the vein of Sally Rooney and Ottessa Moshfegh.
Jade’s new work introduces us to a macabre young woman named Vicky. For as far back as she can remember, Vicky has been fascinated and obsessed with death as the only inevitable thing in life. From living above a Chinatown funeral parlor to working at a celebrity start-up for bespoke urns, she has surrounded herself with death—in her home, in her work, and in her ever-growing collection of zhizha, paper creations meant to be burned for the dead. When it comes to life and the living, however, she struggles to have meaningful connections—or find any meaning at all.
That changes when a dating app leads her into a throuple with an artist and a labor organizer, who offer exactly the kind of love she needs. For some time, it’s perfect, but no one understands better than Vicky that all things must end. With everything beginning to feel hollow and temporary, Vicky must decide how to keep moving forward. To try and hold on to what she has, or to once again do what she does best: destroy.
Please join Jade and program moderator Marina Fang after the reading for a public reception celebrating this hometown writing phenom!
You can purchase a copy of Jade’s book, I Love You Don’t Die, at City of Asylum Bookstore.
About the Author:
Jade Song is a writer, filmmaker, and artist whose first novel, Chlorine, was lauded as “visionary and disturbing,” selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice, awarded the Alex Award and the Writer’s Center First Novel Prize, and translated into multiple languages. Jade’s short story collection, Ox Ghost Snake Demon, is forthcoming in early 2027. Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Jade has taught writing at organizations like Tin House, Morbid Anatomy, and Lighthouse Writers Workshop; she has received support from the Vermont Studio Center and the Black List, which selected her adapted screenplay of Chlorine for its annual Writers Lab.
The event is moderated by Marina Fang.
The book launch event runs from 7:00 to 8:30 pm at Alphabet City on the North Side (map) and online; it's free, but registration is required.