Last year was the 25th anniversary of the “June 4 Incident,” as it is officially known. State security went full bore over the ultra-sensitive date, harassing journalists and activists, detaining anyone who sneezed on the subject.
Here's a strange little story from the other side of the world. Frances Chan, a 20-year-old history major at Yale, was apparently told by her school's health center officials that she was dangerously underweight at 92 pounds. She's 5-foot-2, and according to the ideal weight calculator, someone between her age and height should weigh at least 97 pounds. As Chan wrote on Huffington Post last month about her ordeal:
PEN America organized a protest called "Take a Stand for Free Expression in China: An Evening of Literary Protest" last Thursday, April 10, in front of the Brooklyn Public Library in New York. Ai Weiwei was more or less the face of the event, attended by several hundreds of people / bored Brooklynites, which was also had the purpose of raising awareness of persecuted Chinese writers. Art Daily reports that Ai Weiwei appeared via video message to thank his supporters.
An episode of The Colbert Report last Wednesday used the words "ching-chong ding-dong" in an attempt to satirize / skewer Washington dunderhead Dan Synder. When the show's Twitter account tweeted the joke the next day without context -- “I am willing to show #Asian community I care by introducing the Ching-Chong Ding-Dong Foundation for Sensitivity to Orientals or Whatever” -- a bit of hell broke loose on social media, resulting in Korean-American Twitter activist Suey Park starting the hashtag #CancelColbert. It reeked of so much faux outrage and willful ignorance
Tom Chou played the Chinese character in the music videos for "Chinese Food" and "Get In My Car," both produced by "Friday" producer Patrice Wilson. Although criticized by some as racially insensitive and tacky, the two videos together have amassed more than 16 million views on Youtube and Youku.
It was more than a year ago (has it been so long?) that we posted about a Kickstarter called "Awesome Asian Bad Guys," in which two Los Angeles-based filmmakers sought to make an action-comedy Web series featuring a bunch of Asian bad guys you might have forgotten.
Jimmy Kimmel held a "kid's table" a couple of weeks ago and asked blah blah blah, and it was all pretty boring until some young'un said we should "kill everyone in China." If you're interested in the context, read up on it here. "Kill everyone in China" isn't the best joke, even out of the mouth of a young child -- it's certainly not the best thing* Kimmel's done with kids -- but whatever, it's Jimmy Kimmel, it's late-night comedy, who really cares?
A 37-year-old mother, Li Qiaozhen, and her four children, ages 9, 7, 5, and 1, were stabbed to death inside their home on Saturday night in Brooklyn, New York. At least one of the victims may have been decapitated.
The murderer has been identified as Chen Mingdong, 25, reportedly an illegal alien from China who was staying with the family. (He is apparently Li's husband's cousin.) The New York Post reports that, according to a police source, Chen said he killed the family because they "had too much."
Jimmy Kimmel hosted a "kid's table" discussion on the US government shutdown last week, eliciting the usual spate of "kids say the darndest things" chuckles from the audience. But one sound bite in particular stood out. Let's roll the tape.
