Furoshiki Gift Wrapping Event at Maridon Museum, December 10.

The Maridon Museum will host a Furoshiki Gift Wrapping Event with Jae Brown on Thursday, December 10. Furoshiki is "a traditional Japanese wrapping cloth traditionally used to transport clothes, gifts, or other goods." Guests are requested to bring a gift no larger than a shirt box to wrap; scarves will be provided. The event starts at 6:30 pm and the cost is $10. Reservations are required and can be made by calling the museum at 724-282-0123.

The Maridon, an Asian art museum, is located at 322 North McKean St. in downtown Butler (map), roughly 40 miles north of Pittsburgh.

New Taiwanese restaurant coming to old laundromat in Squirrel Hill.

When I had an apartment in Squirrel Hill a few years ago I would have to visit the Shady Avenue Coin Laundry several times a week. It was in the gray building behind the Starbucks on the corner of Forbes and Shady Aves., and was best known for being a complete dump. A third of the machines would be out of order or too filthy to use; the drop ceiling was stained and missing tiles; the faucets were either broken or spewing out water onto the floor; and the walls were obscured by broken and gutted vending machines. Once I walked in on a photographer at work who had chosen the location because he needed a decrepit setting for a photo shoot.

Anyway, construction started recently on the Taiwanese restaurant that will move into that space at 1711 Shady Ave (map), which was purchased earlier in the year by the same people putting in Hi Sound KTV around the corner. Details are sparse, but the owner is a former chef at the Rose Tea Cafe around the corner.

Chinese movie Fall in Love Like a Star (怦然星动) in Pittsburgh from December 4.

The Chinese movie Fall in Love Like a Star (怦然星动) will play at AMC Loews Waterfront from December 4. A summary, from China Radio International:

Starring China's hottest young actor Li Yifeng and actress Yang Mi, the movie seeks to bring into focus the delicate relationship between celebrities and their agents.

The movie's story revolves around the secretive love between an aspiring actor played by Li and his agent played by Yang in an industry that encourages young actors to remain single in the public eye for fear of losing fans, especially female fans. After a series of misunderstandings and misfortunes, the lovers finally go public.

The movie will be released in China on December 3. Tickets and showtimes are available at the AMC Loews Waterfront website. The theater is located at 300 West Waterfront Dr. in the Waterfront shopping complex in Homestead (map), across the Monongahela River from Greenfield, Squirrel Hill, and the rest of Pittsburgh.

The World of Kanako (渇き) at Parkway Theater, from December 4.

The Parkway Theater in McKees Rocks will show the 2014 Japanese movie The World of Kanako (渇き) from December 4. A Village Voice review writes of it:

The first thing you'll notice about blood-soaked neo-noir The World of Kanako is its hyper but never manic pacing. Most shots last about two seconds, lending a disorienting rhythm to the exhausting gamut of stomach-churning violence that ex-cop Akikazu (Koji Yakusho) exposes himself to during his search for missing daughter Kanako (Nana Komatsu).

There are four showings: December 4 at 9:00 pm, and December 6, 7, and 9 at 7:00 pm. The theater is located at 644 Broadway Ave. in McKees Rocks (map), a few miles west of the North Side.

Random find at Dollar Spree in Greenfield: Chinese Tide (汰渍).

Arumjigi with pictures of the finished 한국문화실 at the University of Pittsburgh.

Design consultants Arumjigi (아름지기) have published photos of the new Korean Heritage Classroom in the University of Pittsburgh that opened in the Cathedral of Learning on November 15. Arumjigi selected the architects who transformed room 304 from an ordinary classroom to one with an appearance inspired by a 15th-century Korean university lecture hall. The Pitt Chronicle had a lengthy write-up of the room prior to the unveiling earlier in the month.

Japan America Society of Pennsylvania's "Japanese-English Reading Circle", December 5 in Shadyside.

The Japan America Society of Pennsylvania will host its next "Japanese-English Reading Circle" in Shadyside on December 5. An overview, from the event's Facebook page:

Japanese Tea Ceremony at Carnegie Library downtown, December 12.

The downtown branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh will host a Japanese Tea Ceremony with Yuko Eguchi Wright on Saturday, December 12:

Tea ceremony, or Chado (The Way of Tea), is a traditional Japanese art involving ritualistic preparation of tea. Influenced by Zen Buddhism philosophy, the core teaching of chado is to attain a spiritual state of selflessness and peacefulness through making and sharing one bowl of tea.

Learn the history and philosophy of the Japanese tea ceremony while tasting Japanese tea and sweets.

The library is located at 612 Smithfield St. (map). The event runs from 2:30 to 4:30 pm, and is free and open to the public.

"Salon Reading: Chen Guangcheng" at City of Asylum, December 1.

Chen in Pittsburgh, from a 2013 Sampsonia Way article.

The City of Asylum---which "provide[s] sanctuary to endangered literary writers, so that they can continue to write and their voices are not silenced---will host an evening with Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚) on December 1.

Chen Guangcheng, known to many as “the barefoot lawyer,” was born in 1971 in the village of Dongshigu, China. Blind since infancy, illiterate until his late teens, he nonetheless taught himself law and became a fiery advocate for tens of thousands of Chinese who had no voice. His escape from inhuman house arrest in China made international headlines, as did his flight to the American embassy in Beijing. In 2012 he became a student at New York University Law School; since 2013 he has been a senior research fellow at Catholic University, the Witherspoon Institute, and the Lantos Foundation. He now lives with his wife and two children in the Washington, D.C., area.

The event runs from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm and is free and open to the public. RSVP is required and can be done online. The City of Asylum is located at 330 Sampsonia Way on Pittsburgh's Northside (map).

Hong Kong films The Killer (喋血雙雄), Fallen Angels (墮落天使), at Row House Cinema, December 4 - 10.

The Row House Cinema in Lawrenceville will show two classic Hong Kong films in a "France vs Hong Kong New Wave" series from December 4th through 10th. The series will include The Killer (喋血雙雄) and Fallen Angels (墮落天使), in addition to two French films.

A 1991 New York Times review provides a summary of the 1989 John Woo film The Killer:

Set in contemporary Hong Kong, "The Killer" tells the story of Jeff Chow, a hired gun with a heart of gold who falls in love with a nightclub singer named Jennie, whom he has accidentally blinded during a shoot out. Determined to make enough money to give up his violent ways and pay for the cornea transplants that could restore Jennie's sight, Jeff accepts one final deadly assignment. Having completed the assassination, he speeds off from the scene of a crime in a spectacular motorboat chase with the police.

The chase is the first move in an extended game of cat and mouse with his pursuer, Inspector Lee, who eventually becomes his ally when the two of them face down the entire Hong Kong underworld in an apocalyptic shootout.

And a 1998 Roger Ebert review says of the 1995 Wong Kar-Wai film Fallen Angels:

To describe the plot is to miss the point. "Fallen Angels" takes the materials of the plot--the characters and what they do--and assembles them like a photo montage. At the end, you have impressions, not conclusions. His influences aren't other filmmakers, but still photographers and video artists--the kinds of artists who do to images what rap artists are doing to music when they move the vinyl back and forth under the needle.

The people in his films are not characters but ingredients, or subjects. They include a hit man and his female "manager," who share separate dayparts in a hotel room that seems only precariously separate from the train tracks outside. (She scrubs the place down before her shift, kneeling on the floor in her leather minidress and mesh stockings.) There is also a man who stopped speaking after eating a can of outdated pineapple slices (pineapple sell-by dates were also a theme in "Chungking Express"). He makes a living by "reopening" stores that are closed for the night, and has an uncertain relationship with a young woman who acts out her emotions theatrically. There is another woman wandering about in a blond wig, for no better purpose, I suspect, than that "Chungking Express" also contained such a character.

Show times and ticket information is now available at the Row House Cinema website. The theater is located at 4115 Butler Street (map).