"Tokyo-Ebisu" in Pittsburgh, October 5 and 6.

The Melwood Screening Room in Oakland (map) will be showing the Ann Arbor Film Festival tour for free on Friday, October 5, and Saturday, October 6. One Japanese short film is part of "Program B", which starts on Friday at 9:15 pm and Saturday at 7:30 pm. "Tokyo-Ebisu" is a 10-minute film by Tomonari Nishikawa that, in his words,

shows the views from the platforms of 10 stations in Yamanote Line, from Tokyo Station to Ebisu Station clockwise. The in-camera visual effects and the layered soundtrack may exaggerate the sense of the actual locations, while suggesting the equipments that were used for capturing the audio and visual.

Golden Dragon Acrobats at Pitt, November 11.

The Golden Dragon Acrobats will be performing at the University of Pittsburgh's Bellefield Auditorium (map) on November 11 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are free to those with a Pitt ID card, or $5 for general admission. From the Chinese American Student Association at Pitt:

After being on hiatus from PITT’s campus for almost half a century, the Golden Dragon Acrobats are back! The two hour long theatrical performance has stunned audiences from across the world. Having performed at the Nation’s Capital multiple times, the Golden Dragon Acrobats from China travel around the world, presenting their magnificent acts, such as “Thousand Hand Goddess” or “Contortion”. The event is sure to leave you amazed at this art form that has been apart of over 2000 years of Chinese cultural history. Surely a great event for all ages.

Vietnamese-language film Three Seasons at Butler's Maridon Museum, October 5.

As part of its Vietnamese Film Series, Butler's Maridon Museum (map) will show the 1999 Vietnamese-language film Three Seasons on Friday, October 5th, at 6:30 pm. Wikipedia says Three Seasons

is an American Vietnamese language film filmed in Vietnam about the past, present, and future of Ho Chi Minh City in the early days of Doi Moi. It is a poetic film that tries to paint a picture of the urban culture undergoing westernization. The movie takes place in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. As the characters try to come to terms with the invasion of capitalism, neon signs, grand 5-star hotels, and Coca-Cola signs, their paths begin to merge.

It looks like the most intesting of the three Maridon is showing this fall.

Upcoming Appalasia concerts, October 5 and 6.

Appalasia, a local band that "combines the influences of Appalachian and Asian music traditions with original composition and inspired improvisation to create their unique musical voice", will be playing several concerts next weekend. From their Facebook page:

Friday, October 5, noon - 1:00 p.m.
Calliope Emerging Legends Series
@ The Cup & Chaucer
Ground Floor, Hillman Library
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Saturday, October 6, 11:05 a.m. - noon, 88.3 WRCT, The Saturday Light Brigate radio program

Saturday, October 6, 7:30 p.m., opening for The Travelers, Calliope Concert serires, Carnegie Lecture Hall (Oakland)

Hillman Library in Oakland (map) is accessible via a number of buses from downtown and the East End (Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, Greenfield), including: 61A, 61B, 61C, 61D, 64, and 67. Appalasia is also playing the Aspinwall "Fall in the Wall" Street Fair October 13th at 1:00 pm.

Japanese rock band Dazzle Vision to play Pittsburgh's Tekkoshocon.

Very advance notice, but Japanese rock band Dazzle Vision will play Pittsburgh's Tekkoshocon on April 6, 2013. Dazzle Vision is, according to a skimpy press release plagiarized from Wikipedia,

popular in the Japanese indies scene for their hard rock sound and Maiko’s alternating melodic/death-voice vocals[.]

Tekkoshocon is a Japanese anime and pop-culture festival in Pittsburgh each spring, popular among fans and people-watchers alike. Here's a taste of Dazzle Vision's latest album:

"Chuseok in the Park" with Korea Focus in Sewickley, September 30.

Korea Focus, a local group "in support of Korean-American adoptive families and individuals", is celebrating "Chuseok in the Park" on September 30 in Sewickley (map). From their Facebook page:

Please join us for the 2nd Annual
Chuseok in the Park!

Sunday, September 30, noon-dusk
War Memorial Park
Shelter One (Up on the Hill)
Blackburn Road
Sewickley PA 15143

Chuseok is one of the year’s most important traditional Korean holidays. It is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. Chuseok is often referred to as Korean Thanksgiving Day. It’s a celebration of the harvest and thanksgiving for the bounty of the earth.

In addition to enjoying the awesome playgrounds and wooden walking trails at War Memorial Park, we'll be celebrating with traditional Korean and American food and drinks, music, arts and crafts. Join us for the day or stop by for tea and songpyeon (a special type of sweet rice cakes). We'll be there, rain or shine. And if it is cold enough, we'll make good use of the fireplace!

Contact information available at the link.

Chinese American Students Association at Pitt presents Mid-Autumn Festival, September 29.

Saturday, September 29, the Chinese American Student Association at Pitt will hold a Mid-Autumn Festival at the O'Hara Student Center in Oakland. From the group's website:

September 29th, 2012 (Saturday)
CASA’s Annual Mid-Autumn Festival
Location: O’Hara Student Center
Time: 5:30pm – 9:30pm

Be sure to come to this month’s biggest event! CASA will be hosting our annual Mid-Autumn Festival, filled with FREE Chinese Food and festivities! Moon cakes, lanterns, calligraphy, etc. will be just some of the wonderful delights you will see at the festival. So come with an empty stomach and open mind, and indulge yourself into the celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival!

9月29日2012年(六)
中秋節晚會
地點: O’Hara 學生中心
時間: 17:30 – 21:30

沒辦法回家想慶祝，就得來參加這個月最矚目的活動～CASA週年中秋節晚會！活動會從滿了免費晚餐，月餅，燈籠，書法，等等。記得要空著肚子來喔！

The group should also get credit for being one of the only around that has an updated, user-friendly website.

"Ramen Bar" coming to Squirrel Hill.

Construction is underway at "ウー Ramen Bar", a new ramen place in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill. The sign went up recently on 5860 Forbes Ave. (map), most recently a short-lived pasta place. It'll be interesting to see what this becomes: an authentic Japanese- or Chinese-style place, or a generic Asian soup kitchen. I'm hoping for the former. The katakana is pronounced uu.



Now Pittsburghers interested in decent Japanese-style ramen have to travel to Yama in Morgantown, WV. Given all the Asian students, and Asian-food lovers, in Pittsburgh's East End, the absence of certain staples is surprising. We got Asian-style karaoke/KTV/노래방 this week, so maybe real ramen isn't far behind.

[11/30/12 update: Now open]

"The Labor of Cute: Net Idols, Cute Culture, and the Social Factory in Contemporary Japan" lecture at University of Pittsburgh, October 17.

On October 17 from 4:30 to 6:30, Dr. Gabrielle Lukacs will lecture on "The Labor of Cute: Net Idols, Cute Culture, and the Social Factory in Contemporary Japan". The lecture will be in the English Nationality Room of the Cathedral of Learning, with a reception to follow.

Dr. Lukacs is an assistant professor in the Anthropology department, and this particular lecture has been going around for a year. In 2010 Dr. Lukacs presented on similar topics, "The Net Idols: Cute Culture, Social Factory, and Neoliberal Governmentality in New Millennial Japan" at Pitt:

In this presentation, I analyze a recent Japanese phenomenon, what is called the net idols—young women who produce their own websites featuring personal photos and diaries. Many net idols earn an income from maintaining these websites, thus I understand them as new labor subjectivities that have evolved in late 1990s Japan in response to the deregulation of labor markets and unprecedented developments in new information technologies. Mastering cute looks and embracing cute behavior are key to the popularity of net idols. While the culture of cute has drawn considerable scholarly attention in recent years, it has been dominantly understood as a form of resistance to work-oriented adult society, a retreat to childhood—a space within which young women find redemption indulging in infantile play and passive behavior. By contrast, I draw on the Italian autonomists’ theory of the social factory to analyze the net idols’ production of cute culture as symptomatic of the ways in which the meanings, forms, and conditions of work have changed as intangible commodities (such as cute) have become the new center of economic gravity in the wake of growing economic volatility. Equally important, by analyzing the net idol phenomenon I also aim to theorize an emerging form of rationality (the foundational logic of neoliberal governmentality) within which individuals accept and even celebrate the end of job security as a marker of a shift from the postwar order of “working to find pleasure” to the neoliberal imperative to “find pleasure in work.”

Japanese earthquake and tsunami survivors to visit Pittsburgh Allderdice High School this November.

The Japanese American Society of Pennsylvania writes about the Kizuna Project in Pittsburgh this fall:

Twenty four Japanese students from Hitachi Dai Ni High School in Japan will be visiting Pittsburgh’s Allderdice High school from Nov 7- 10 as part of the high school students volunteers exchange program called the Kizuna project. Hitachi city suffered from the Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami.
Allderdice students visited Hitachi Dai Ni School for two weeks, helped the city as volunteers and learned about the earthquake affected area and their people this summer. In exchange Japanese students will visit Allderdice to share the real stories of their lives with at a presentation about their experiences and recovery efforts in the area. The presentation is open to the public and begins at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 8, 2012. Pittsburgh Taiko will be participating in the presentation.