June 19, 2018

Los Angeles

A new day has dawned at the Los Angeles Times, the 136-year-old newspaper has a new owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. Dr. Soon-Shiong is a biotech billionaire with a vision to revitalize the newspaper. He told the New York Times, "The newspaper is really important to bind the community." "It bound us in my world of South Africa, and it's really a voice for the people." 

(Photo credit: Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)

Read about his interview to the New York Times "L.A. Times's New Owner Plans Big Moves. First Up, Relocating to the Suburbs."

Click here to the story about new owner Dr. Soon-Shiong by the Los Angeles Times writers Meg James and Andrea Chang. On Monday he announced that journalist Norman Pearlstine would become executive editor, a 50 year veteran in journalism, with an impressive career at Time Inc. magazines, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News and Forbes. 

February 15, 2018

San Francisco

Happy Lunar New Year! The Lunar New Year begins Friday, February 16, 2018!

Ben Fong-Torres and Julie Haener co-host Southwest Airlines® Chinese New Year Parade on February 24 in San Francisco beginning at 5:15pm PST. Organizers expect 1.2 million people will be attending in person.

The Parade will be broadcast live on KTVU Fox 2 or KTSF Channel 26 6:00-8:00pm Saturday February 24, 2018 on television! Watch the Parade live from the streets in San Francisco - the largest of its kind outside of Asia! It will weave its way through San Francisco Chinatown and ends at Jackson and Kearny Streets. Here's a report which includes comments on the 60-year parade tradition from Ben Fong-Torres on NBCNews.com. 

Named one of the top ten Parades in the world by International Festivals & Events Association, this is truly a sight to see.

The parade began in San Francisco more than one hundred years ago, and is one of the few remaining night illuminated parades in North America.

This year the Southwest Airlines® 2018 Chinese New Year festivities range from the great Chinese New Year parade, to street fairs, a fashion show, and many other events beginning February 10 and run through the month of February and into early March. Bobo the parrot says Gung Hay Fat Choy!

January 5, 2018

Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi has a new character named Rose Tico that fans are buzzing about.

The character is the first major Star Wars role played by an Asian American woman.

That woman is 29 year old Kelly Marie Tran, an actress of Vietnamese American descent from San Diego.

After filming wrapped Tran took time off to travel to South Africa where she worked in an endangered wildlife reserve without electricity, internet or running water.

Then she accompanied her family to visit her  father's village where he showed her where he slept as a homeless street kid for seven years. 

“I could have had this life,” Tran told Buzzfeed News, “and now I have this one, and it’s purely because my parents dropped everything and moved to a country where they didn’t know the language [and] didn’t have any opportunities.

I very much have felt this whole time that I’ve been living for multiple generations of life.”

Tran says, alot of “Star Wars” fans who are specifically Asian never had a character they could dress up like, or they would and people would always call them “Asian Rey” or “Asian fill-in-the-blank.”

I get very emotional when I see people who are able to identify with this character. That means a lot to me and I don’t think it will ever get old.

It feels like a big deal because it’s so rare, I wish it wasn’t. 

March 26, 2018

San Francisco

In a world in desparate need of heroes - we have a real life one.

Decades before 'Diversity" and "Inclusion" became fashionable terms, Justice Harry W. Low was already at the forefront making positive change in our world. 

This month Justice Low celebrates his birthday and is as busy as ever arbitrating cases all over the country. 

My colleague ABC7 KGO TV's David Louie and I, a former KRON TV - NBC reporter Suzanne Joe (Kai), co-hosted this video celebrating Justice Low's extraordinary career and service to our community.

While researching for a film project, I visited the archives at UC Berkeley.

The head archivist said there is a resurgence of young people searching for their identities.

I saw them going through old, fragile, dusty newspaper clippings of the 60s and 70s to learn about the revolution when youth stood up to save our world.  

On one of the newspaper's front page was Justice Harry W. Low.  

Let's celebrate and honor our living heroes now.

This video was originally produced and edited by Steven Joe for Asian, Inc.'s Lifetime Achievement Award honoring Justice Low.

Click here to our Happy Birthday video honoring Justice Harry W. Low!

Or this link to the video:

https://youtu.be/wQRR_p_jzms

June 8, 2018

Its been a tough week. First Kate Spade. Then this morning the news of Anthony Bourdain. 

I never knew them personally, but they touched my life and so many of my friends. There was something about our Kate Spade handbags that made us smile, and we watched Anthony Bourdain travel the world sharing his adventures in culture and cuisine. 

Of the many tributes and articles, here is one by writer/filmmaker Kevin Pang, who met Anthony Bourdain several times. (for links to work, click to the main article) Click here to his article "What Anthony Bourdain gave us, and what he left us." 

Another notable article "Preventable Tragedies" written by The New Yorker writer Andrew Soloman discusses the factors that may be contributing to our naton's increased suicide rate.

Soloman writes in his article,"we feel both our own anguish and the world's. There is a dearth of emphathy, even of kindness, in the national conversation, and those deficits turn ordinary neurosis into actionable despair." 

Two important new documentaries on suicide are "The S Word" https://theswordmovie.com and the soon to be released "Do No Harm." "The S Word" is directed by Lisa Klein, and produced by Doug Blush who was also Supervising Editor. Filmmaker Robyn Symon, director of the soon to be relesed documentary Do No Harm DoNoHarmFilm.com about the suicide rate of doctors writes: