George Aratani: Japanese-American business leader, community icon, Pittsburgh Pirates prospect.

San Pedro Skippers.

A line in the obituary for George Aratani, the prominent Japanese-American businessman and community leader who died Tuesday at the age of 95, caught my eye. Los Angeles' Rafu Shinpo on Aratani's youth:

A handsome and talented athlete, he was even being scouted by the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team in high school, but a football injury derailed his aspirations for a possible professional sports career.

Unsurprisingly, Pirates scouting reports from 1933 are scarce, but Aratani's Pittsburgh connection turns up in a few other places. The Japanese American National Museum writes about baseball among second-generation Japanese-Americans (Nisei):

The 1920s and 1930s were the golden age of Nisei baseball. Teams could be found in practically every community. Semipro teams were formed. The San Pedro Skippers, a Southern California semipro Nisei team averaged 14 runs a game in the late 1930s. Stars emerged and sometimes even were invited to play with professional teams. Shortstop George Aratani was invited to practice with the visiting Pittsburg Pirates in Santa Maria in the 1930s where his coaches were Hall of Famers Honus Wagner, Paul and Lloyd Waner.

In spite of how good, and how underrated, some of these Japanese teams were, an article from 2003 about Pirates' spring training in Paso Robles, though, may make you wonder how much of a prospect Aratani was:

You've got to wonder what the Pirates and Cubs did for competition in those springs of the '20s. They were the only big league teams that came to California. The answer is the played a lot of intra-squad games that usually pitted the veterans against the rookies. But local players also got into the act according to Brian Milne, sports editor of the North County Tribune, Paso Robles' newspaper. The Chamber of Commerce put together teams that were only to happy to try their skills against the big leaguers. Semipro teams from around San Luis Obispo County and even high school teams got to try their luck. Pacific Coast minor league teams also provided competition for the Buccaneers.

Some of the better local players were even looked at seriously as prospects. But the talent bar was sometimes set pretty low. Milne writes of Bud Sheely, a student at Paso Robles High School, getting to play against his father, Pirate first baseman Earl Sheely. The older Sheely's only year with Pittsburgh was 1929, when Bud, who eventually made it to the majors himself, was 11 years old.

The Pirates wouldn't get their first Japanese player until they signed veteran pitcher Masumi Kuwata in 2007, and have never had an Asian-American on their roster.

Japanese coffee roasters visit Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes today about a group of Japanese coffee professionals visiting Pittsburgh to learn a little more about the specialty coffee business.

In Japan, it's been a challenge to convince customers that some coffees are worth more than others, with a slowing economy hitting the industry hard.

More on the visit halfway down this Specialty Coffee Chronicle article from last month.

Colloquium "Chinese Social Media as Laboratory: What We Can Learn about China from Research into Sina Weibo", February 22.

If you're near the University of Pittsburgh on Friday, Jason Ng will host an hour-long colloquium "Chinese Social Media as Laboratory: What We Can Learn about China from Research into Sina Weibo". Ng is an Interdisciplinary Master's candidate in Pitt's Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures.

In November he presented "Blocked on Weibo: Content Regulation in Chinese Social Media" during Pitt's "Asia Over Lunch" series. You can learn more about the topic from his "Blocked on Weibo" tumblr.

Pittsburgh City Council proclaims "OCA Year of the Snake Day".

Pittsburgh City Council proclaimed February 19 "OCA Year of the Snake Day". OCA is the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Japanese film Summer Wars at Pitt, February 25.

The final installment of this month's Pittsburgh Anime Film Series is 2009's Summer Wars (サマーウォーズ). A plot summary from the film's North American site:

Kenji is your typical teenage misfit. He’s good at math, bad with girls, and spends most of his time hanging out in the all-powerful, online community known as OZ. His second life is the only life he has – until the girl of his dreams, Natsuki, hijacks him for a starring role as a fake fiancée at her family reunion. Things only get stranger from there. A late-night email containing a cryptic mathematic riddle leads to the unleashing of a rogue AI intent on using the virtual word of OZ to destroy the real world, literarily. As Armageddon looms on the horizon, Kenji and his new “family” set aside their differences and band together to save the worlds they inhabit in this “near-perfect blend of social satire and science fiction.”

The movie starts at 7 pm at the Frick Fine Arts Building in Oakland (map). It's free and open to the public.

Sister City Haiyang.

Reading about a Lunar Near Year event in Cranberry that already took place we learned that Cranberry Township has a sister city in China. Haiyang is a coastal city with a population of 716,060 and an under-developed Wikipedia page. Other Asian places with local ties are Wuhan, China and Saitama prefecture, Japan, both of which are Sister Cities to Pittsburgh.

Three Asian films at "13 Hours of Grindhouse", February 23.

Taiwan's Wolf-Devil Woman (狼女白魔) is one offering next Saturday.

I turned to the South Hills Almanac for news of the "13 Hours of Grindhouse" at Dormont's Hollywood Theater on February 23. (And I turned to Wikipedia for an explanation of the grindhouse genre.) Local gem The Hollywood Theater (map), which is showing a Japanese anime film on the 24th, will include in the series, according to the Almanac:

“Savage!” (aka “Back Valor,” 1973, Philippines), “Angels from Hell” (1968, USA), “Wolf-Devil Woman” (1982, Taiwan), “The Killing Machine” (1976, Japan), “Weapons of Death” (1977, Italy), “Massacre Time” (aka “The Brute and the Beast,” 1966, Italy), “Pieces” (1982, Spain), “The Big Bust Out” (1972, Italy/West Germany) and “Ilsa, the Tigress of Siberia” (1977, Canada).

The "festival" of domestic and international exploitation films runs from 11 am to 1 am the following day, and includes, again according to the Almanac,

a select number of vendors on hand in the theater’s lobby and lower level, selling a wide range of movie-related items such as DVDs, books, records, magazines, posters, T-shirts and original works of art.

Each movie is $5, and you can get an all-day pass for $15.

Japanese film Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror, February 24.

The Japanese animated film Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror (ホッタラケの島 〜遥と魔法の鏡〜 Hottarake no Shima: Haruka to Mahō no Kagami) will play at Dormont's Hollywood Theater (map) on February 24.

The Hollywood Theater shows the occasional Japanese or anime film, and is about the only theater around town to do so outside of an annual film series. Last year the theater showed the animes Summer Wars and Madoka Magica, and the live-action I Wish and Battle Royale. It is currently in jeopardy of closing and is in the middle of a fundraising campaign to buy a digital projector.

Tibetan film Old Dog at IUP's Foreign Film and Music Series.

I'll post about this again in April, but the Tibetan film Old Dog will run on April 10 as part of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania 2013 Foreign Film and Music Series. From the series' website:

A family on the Himalayan plains discovers their dog is worth a fortune, but selling it comes at a terrible price. Old Dog is both a humorous and tragic allegory and a sober depiction of life among the impoverished rural Tibetan community.

There are two showings, at 5:30 pm and 8:00 pm, in Sprawls Hall. The shows are free and are funded in part by the IUP Student Activity Fee. Before I repost in April I will ask if there is a way for non-students to chip in a little money to the Office of International Education, which is putting on the series. IUP student SiLu Jia will be the evening's musical guest.

I bring up the series now for three reasons. I noticed, four days late, that a Chinese film was included in this year's series on February 10. Additionally, Indiana is within reasonable driving distance to Pittsburgh at roughly 90 minutes away, and may be of interest to people on this side of the state. Finally, the campus puts on good international films. The best film series I've seen in western PA was a Korean festival nearly a decade ago, which had Chunhyang; Spring Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring; Chihwaseon; Wakiki Brothers; and a few others.

Sushi: The Global Catch at Carnegie Mellon International Film Festival.

Advance notice for this, but Carnegie Mellon will show the documentary Sushi: The Global Catch as part of its 2013 International Film Festival on April 10. Details to follow, but the festival will run from March 21 through April 14 (the website gives multiple variations on this range) and hopes---according to festival organizers---to include various cultural activities and presentations to promote Japanese culture in general and Japanese community in the area.