Friends and family honored Shirley Fong-Torres' life at memorial services in San Francisco on July 24. Her life and vivacious personality touched people worldwide with her books, television appearances, and her Wok Wiz company's daily guided walking and culinary tours of San Francisco's Chinatown and North Beach.   

Shirley was born November 16, 1946 in Oakland, daughter of Connie and the late Ricardo Fong-Torres, and was a graduate of U.C. Berkeley.

She was a teacher in Texas and California, a chef, and after working in marketing for Levi Strauss, she created Wok Wiz in 1985, offering tours, as well as cooking lessons.

Her business drew rave reviews and quickly grew, and she built a staff of tour guides to meet demand. She wrote such books as San Francisco Chinatown: A Walking Tour, The Chinese Kitchen, Wok Wiz Chinese Cookbook, and The Woman Who Ate Chinatown. Shirley wrote articles for many food and travel publications and frequently appeared on radio and television including The Food Channel, History and Discovery Channels, and inflight for Hawaiian Airlines, Qantas Airlines and JetBlue.

She was active in many community groups and often served on the board of the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau. She had homes in San Francisco and Pacifica.

She and her former husband, Richard Dong, were the parents of Tina Dong Pavao, and she was a vivacious, fun-loving grandmother to Tina’s two daughters with Matt Pavao, Maggie and Stella....

Tony Award winner and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly) is having a banner summer in Chicago, where three of his plays are being produced.

From June 14-July 17, the Silk Road Theatre Project is presenting the Chicago premiere of Hwang’s semi-autobiographical Yellow Face, directed by Steve Scott at The Historic Chicago Temple Building in collaboration with the Goodman Theatre; from June 18-July 24, the Goodman Theatre is presenting the world premiere of Hwang’s Chinglish, a razor-sharp new comedy about the challenges of doing business in a culture worlds apart from our own, directed by Leigh Silverman in the Albert Theatre; and from August 11-September 4, the Halcyon Theatre is presenting Hwang’s Family Devotions, a comedy where chaos ensues when three generations of an Asian-American family welcome their patriarch from Communist China, directed by Jennifer Adams at the Greenhouse Theater Center.

How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rose Hemingway and Tony winner John Larroquette were greeted by Rich Weiner, Regional Vice President of Stores for Lord & Taylor, as they stepped out on Fifth Ave on June 23, 2011, for the unveiling of the Lord & Taylor Flagship Store Fifth Avenue windows filled with fashions inspired by their successful Broadway revival.

On the day of the unveiling, the first 75 customers to spend $300 or more in cosmetics received vouchers for a pair of tickets to the show. Customers spending $75 in the cosmetic/fragrance department also received a CD of the 2011 Broadway Revival Cast Recording of How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

My portrait of “New York actor Thom Sesma’s Makeup Transformation into Scar in The Lion King” is featured in New York City: IN FOCUS, Vol. 2, the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation’s Art Collection Photographic Exhibition, currently on view in the main lobby/atrium of Bellevue Hospital Center, 462 First Avenue in New York through July 14, 2011.

Celebrating over seventy-five years of having public art in hospitals, the NYC Health and Hospitals Corporation’s Art Collection proudly presents their traveling photographic exhibition, New York City: IN FOCUS, Vol. 2. This exhibition is a modern take on the 1950’s photographic exhibit, Family of Man. The exhibit features a collection of black and white, color, and digital prints that focus on different aspects of iconic imagery; architecture, landscape, culture, and people through-out the five boroughs and snapshots of the NYC experience.

Last night, I got a taste of Christmas in June, Desi style, at The Wild Project in the East Village, where Bakwas Bumbug, an electrifying musical reinvention of A Christmas Carol, told thru the looking glass of NYC Immigrants and Hyphenated America, composed by Samrat Chakrabarti and featuring a book and lyrics by Sanjiv Jhaveri and Samrat Chakrabarti, is being presented as a 70 minute workshop production through June 26, 2011.

Presented by Desipina and Co. (Rehana Lew Mirza, Artistic Director & Rohi Mirza Pandya, Producing Director), Samrat Chakrabarti and Sanjiv Jhaveri’s Bakwas Bumbug is a delicious treat, poignant, touching, and laugh out loud funny.

Bakwas Bumbug , the first Indian American full length musical written, composed & performed by the Diaspora,...