APA Faith Matters is a periodic interview of Asian Pacific American (APA) leaders in various religious contexts. It highlights those leaders who are passionate about social justice issues that matter to APA communities and work from within their religious contexts
Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow is a native Northern Californian and third generation Chinese/Filipino who from 2000-2011 was the founding pastor of Mission Bay Community Church, a church of 20/30-somethings in San Francisco and from 2008-2010 was Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). He is currently working as a consultant - writing, speaking, and teaching. Bruce also serves on the Boards of The Public Religion Research Institute and CA Faith for Equality.
What is your religious background?
I am Presbyterian which is one of many Christian denominations in the United States.
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Apparently, people don’t just camp out at Apple Stores in the United States Oh no – the Chinese have had lines for almost two days for the grand opening of their first Apple Store. Being that Apple’s products are the rage world wide, it’s actually no wonder that this would happen with the authentic products considering the amount of counterfeit goods that arise in China already.
Shopping With GASP!
I love emoticons. In every single email and text I write, I try to use them at least once. Whether it’s a business email or a break up text, it doesn’t matter. For example, in a business email I may write, “Sorry, I don’t have the widgets! : ( “ And in a break up text, I may write, “I’m glad I never have to see you again. : )”
First, for those of you stuck in the 18th century, an emoticon is a “is a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters, usually to express a writer’s mood.” A lot of people think that emoticons are a new phenomenon, but they are not. There seems to be some dispute about the first emoticon but the earliest date I found was in 1857 when the number “73” meant “love and kisses” in Morse code. So they have been around for a while. However, they’ve become more popular since the Internet became such a large part of our lives.
In Japan, Sanrio opened Club KT Shibuya, a new store for Hello Kitty merchandise. But this isn’t your typical Sanrio shop.
“Teenagers want to experience club culture for themselves, but they are not allowed to go into places where alcohol is served. Here they can experience club culture,” Tohmatsu [spokesman for Sanrio] told AFP.
It’s a neat idea because it’s basically the club culture inside a retail place which allows the younger generation to experience some of what their older siblings do. If they started some serious techno/trance tracks in that store, I’d be somewhat curious if you’d see some blue pills being passed around that had the Hello Kitty emblem stamped on it.
It looks like Hello Kitty is going to a new level. Since cute is meeting this side of cool, I’m half expecting the Sanrio multi-million dollar brand to start spinning with the likes of Q-bert and Daft Punk at some point. All jesting aside, I think this is totally a smart marketing play by Sanrio. In the States, one of the stores that pushes some cute things along to teenagers happens to be Hot Topic. And in the same type of mannerisms, cool meets cute. Hot Topic is a little more emo and punk styles but you get the idea.
From CNN: Berkeley Campus Republicans have developed “a sliding scale where the price of the cookie or brownie depends on your gender and the color of your skin … ‘The pricing structure is there to bring attention, to cause people to get a little upset,’ Campus Republican President Shawn Lewis, who planned the event. ‘But it’s really there to cause people to think more critically about what this kind of policy would do in university admissions.’ But the young Republicans have been on the receiving end of a fierce backlash. Reaction has been so negative they’ve been forced to cancel their customary lunchtime tabling duties.” Lewis says it’s a way to make a statement about pending legislation that would let the California universities consider race or national origin during the admission process.
Almost exactly four years before Pearl Harbor was bombed, the Imperial Japanese Army descended upon the Chinese city of Nanjing, also known as Nanking, and one of the darkest times of humanity was unleashed. The event is often referred to as the Nanking Massacre or The Rape of Nanking. The extent of the massacre is largely debated, but it stands pretty clear that countless helpless people were terrorized, mutilated, murdered, and raped to death.
I first learned about this horrific tragedy watching the film Nanking 1937 (also known as Don’t Cry, Nanking) which lead me to read Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking. Director Lu Chuan’s The City of Life and Death is the newest film to bring the horrors of this abhorrent chapter of human history to life.
When I took my daughter to Taiwan when she was four years old, there was one aspect about our relationship that always surprised my relatives. It was the way I talked to my daughter and always asked her opinion on what we should do that day, what we should eat for the next meal, and in general just including her in the conversation.
By Halls
Well that was quick: Fresh from tearing it up during the international film festival circuits, Indonesian action film The Raid has been picked up for a Hollywood remake. The Hollywood Reporter reports that Screen Gems is in negotiations on a remake of the film that recently became quite a sensation at the Toronto International Film Festival. It’s only been a few days since the end of TIFF, but boy do these studios move quick.
Thuy Diem Tran noticed that wherever she scratched, she would instantly get a rash. “One day I was shopping and tried on lip gloss, pressing my lips together, and the next day my lips were black with bruising.” She was diagnosed with aplastic anemia, and her life was saved for one reason: an umbilical cord blood transplant.
After being discharged from the army after coming out, former officer and West Point grad Dan Choi says that he plans to reenlist after the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the US military. “Going back to the military will be a vindication,” says Choi in a conversation with Politico magazine. “[I’m] going back because I fought to go back. The seriousness of our claims was not just political theatre – it was really drawn from our lives. I sacrificed so much so I could go back.” While happy about the repeal, he doesn’t think that it will no longer be difficult for gays in the military. “People who believe that discrimination is somehow all erased will have a rude awakening,” says Choi, pointing out that the military will not extend benefits to same-sex spouses.
You know it’s 2011 in San Francisco when there’s anywhere from nine to 37 mayoral candidates running for office, at least five major candidates are Asian and pretty much all of them lean Democrat, or at least, left of political center. You also know it’s 2011 in San Francisco when all the Asian mayoral candidates are fighting with each other to become the official mayoral candidates all the Asians in San Francisco will vote for. And hence, the first official televised attack campaign I’ve seen for this year’s mayoral race on current appointed San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee from California State Senator and former State Assemblyman Leland Yee.
I’ve got a thing for female vocals, especially strong ones, so thank goodness for the album Random Hero by the Los Angeles based rock band Random Ninjas. They’re an amazing gathering of top-notch musicians and a rare female vocalist, Soozana, who never ceases to amaze me with her ability to cut through the rich and powerful rock sound of their music with her gorgeous vocals. Having attended many of their live concerts and felt the ribcage-pounding sound of the three sets of drummers (one set of western drums + two sets of Japanese taiko drums), I was ecstatic when they finished recording their first full-length album last spring. The album was the soundtrack of my sunny summer commutes, and I think I leveled-up my vocal chords belting out the songs alongside Soozana’s killer voice.
More on the album after the jump.
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