Online preview and panel discussion "Harbor from the Holocaust," on European Jews who fled to Shanghai in the 1930s, with WQED, September 3.

An online preview and panel discussion of the upcoming WQED feature "Harbor from the Holocaust" will take place on September 3 with the station's Jim Cunningham.

Be among the first to preview this documentary produced by WQED for PBS. It shares the story of nearly 20,000 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe during WWII to the port city of Shanghai. You'll hear their extraordinary recollections and unique relationship with their adopted city.

This preview will be followed by a panel discussion with Pittsburghers with ties to this poignant story. Rivaling all elements and in tragic contrast to those who could not escape, this is a Holocaust story of life.

The free event starts at 7:00 pm and those interested can register here.

Maridon Museum's September Book Club meeting, The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai, September 24.

The Maridon Museum will read and discuss The Mountains Sing by Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai on September 24 as this month's installment of its Book Club. An overview, from the author's official site:

The Mountains Sing tells an enveloping, multigenerational tale of the Trần family, set against the backdrop of the Việt Nam War. Trần Diệu Lan, born in 1920, was forced to flee her family farm with her six children during the Land Reform. Years later in Hà Nội, her young granddaughter, Hương, comes of age as her parents and uncles fight in a war that tears not just her beloved country, but her family apart.

The Mountains Sing is Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s first novel and the first book she has written in English.

The meetings will be held in person from 3:00 to 4:00 pm but will also have a Zoom component for people not comfortable gathering at this time. Those interested in registering should call 724-282-0123 or email info@maridon.org. The Maridon Museum is an Asian art museum in Butler County that holds frequent movie screenings, classes, and book club meetings, in addition to the art exhibitions that take place when there isn't a pandemic.

Zoom hiring Web DevOps Engineer for Pittsburgh location, with preference for proficiency in Mandarin.

Zoom, which announced earlier this summer a research-and-development center in Pittsburgh, is hiring a Web DevOps Engineer here with a preference for someone proficient in Mandarin.

Zoom is an award-winning workplace. We have been recognized by Comparably as #1 CEO, Company Happiness, Benefits, Compensation, Diversity, and more! Not to mention we’ve been awarded by Glassdoor as the 2nd Best US workplace & Best Large Company US CEO in 2018, Wealthfront, and Business Insider. Our culture focuses on delivering happiness, our commitment to transparency, and the tangible benefits we provide our employees and our customers.

Web DevOps Engineer

Responsibilities
* Design and implement zero-downtime to accomplish highly available service (99.99%)
* Design and implement disaster recovery (DR) between different region Datacenters
* Troubleshoot complex production issues, including performance and function issues
* Cooperating with cloud vendor and infrastructure, engineering team for security and service availability
* Provide deep level of outage troubleshooting for systems and Zoom backend service
* Provide the CI/CD model to deploy and configure the production system

More details available on the job ad.

"The Plight of the Uyghur Muslims in China: A Modern Cultural Genocide," September 1 at Pitt.

The University of Pittsburgh's Center for Governance and Markets will present "The Plight of the Uyghur Muslims in China: A Modern Cultural Genocide" on September 1.

Join the Center for Governance and Markets at GSPIA for a virtual conversation about the plight of the Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, China.

Speakers include:

• Sean Roberts, Director, International Development Program, Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University

• Nury Turkel, who was just appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a Commissioner to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom

• Mihrigul Tursun, a Uyghur who survived the camps in Xinjiang

The 11:00 am online event is free though registration is required.

Hello Kitty Cafe Truck coming to Ross Park Mall, August 29.

via @HellyKittyCafeTruck

The Hello Kitty Cafe Truck will return to Ross Park Mall on August 29.

Hello Pittsburgh! The Hello Kitty Cafe Truck is returning to Ross Park Mall on Saturday 8/29! Come say hello to us near Cheesecake Factory between 11am-7pm and pick up some supercute treats & merch, while supplies last! We welcome all friends to wear masks and practice social distancing.

Learn how we are creating a comfortable and safe environment for our guests and staff here: https://bit.ly/2YOwj9u

*subject to government travel restrictions*

More information about the truck and its tours available via Sanrio.

Crazy Rich Asians free at drive-in at Hartwood Acres, September 4.

The movie Crazy Rich Asians will play outdoors at at Hartwood Acres on September 4" as part of the county's "Drive-In Date Night" series of films that are free and open to the public. (This is two weeks later than originally announced by the county.) A summary of the film, from the distributor:

"Crazy Rich Asians” follows native New Yorker Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) as she accompanies her longtime boyfriend, Nick Young (Henry Golding), to his best friend’s wedding in Singapore. Excited about visiting Asia for the first time but nervous about meeting Nick’s family, Rachel is unprepared to learn that Nick has neglected to mention a few key details about his life. It turns out that he is not only the scion of one of the country’s wealthiest families but also one of its most sought-after bachelors. Being on Nick’s arm puts a target on Rachel’s back, with jealous socialites and, worse, Nick’s own disapproving mother (Michelle Yeoh) taking aim. And it soon becomes clear that while money can’t buy love, it can definitely complicate things.

Gates open at 7:00 pm and the movie starts at dusk. Spaces are first-come first-served, and the gates will close once the parking lots are full.

2018 Chinese movie Animal World (动物世界) online at Pitt, part of Watch Party Wednesdays, September 30.

The University of Pittsburgh's Office of International Services will present the 2018 Chinese film Animal World (动物世界) on September 30, part of its Watch Party Wednesday series. A South China Morning Post review writes:

An earnest adaptation of a profoundly silly Japanese anime, Chinese director Han Yan’s film is about a young man stuck in a dead-end job who dreams of slaying monsters and gets sucked into a deadly game of rock-paper-scissors

The 7:00 pm event is free and open to the Pitt community, though registration is required.

Bong Joon-ho film Snowpiercer (설국열차) online at Pitt, part of Watch Party Wednesday series, September 16.

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The University of Pittsburgh's Office of International Services will present the 2013 Bong Joon-ho film Snowpiercer (설국열차) online on September 16, part of its Watch Party Wednesday series. An introduction, via a review from The Atlantic:

Snowpiercer is set after the onset of an ice age, triggered by humanity’s efforts to solve global warming, and set on a train that runs perpetually around the earth, doing one circuit per year, using some combo of a perpetual motion engine and recycled ice that it’s better not to think too hard about. The glorious advantage of setting the movie entirely on a train is that it’s so easy to make the class stratifications Bong wants to talk about clear. At the back of the train, conditions are grim; everyone’s got soot on their faces, people are missing limbs, they eat black jellied “protein bars” handed out by the military, and once in a while their kids get measured and snatched away for reasons unknown.

The 7:00 pm event is free and open to the Pitt community, though registration is required.

"Drinking Tea in Japan" with Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania, online on September 2.

by Flood G.

The Japan-America Society of Pennsylvania will present "Drinking Tea in Japan" on September 2, the final installment of its Late Summer Lecture Series.

Japanese tea drinking has been a part of Japanese culture and tradition for hundreds of years. The influence of Japanese tea has not only expanded across the globe, but it also developed into a practice with its own types of aesthetics. Join Katsuko Shellhammer for a presentation on the history and types of tea in Japan. We will also explore modern ways to drink tea and what snacks to pair with your tea time. Finally, follow along at home and learn how to make dorayaki pancakes!

A Zoom link will be emailed to registrants before the event.

Registration and donation information for the 6:30 pm event is available online.

1998 Japanese film After Life (ワンダフルライフ) with Pitt's Asian Studies Center, September 2, part of three-part Hirokazu Koreeda series.

The University of Pittsburgh's Asian Studies Center will present the 1998 Japanese movie After Life (ワンダフルライフ) on September 2, the first in a three-part series of Hirokazu Koreeda films. Wikipedia provides a summary:

A small, mid-20th century social-service-style structure is a way station between life and death. Every Monday, a group of recently deceased people check-in: the social workers in the lodge ask them to go back over their life and choose one single memory to take into the afterlife. They are given just a couple of days to identify their happiest memory, after which the workers design, stage and film them. In this way, the souls will be able to re-experience this moment for eternity, forgetting the rest of their life.

Twenty-two souls of different ages and backgrounds arrive and are received by the counsellors, who explain them their situation. Lengthy interviews take place in the lodge, with each person having different perspectives of their lives, some being more reluctant in indicating a significant memory.

Registration for the free 7:00 pm event is required. The next two films in the series are 2004's Nobody Knows (誰も知らない) on October 14 with Dr. Charles Exley of the Department of East Asian Languages & Literatures and 2018's Shoplifters (万引き家族).