Christopher John Stephens

Leisure April 13, 2024 0

A Conversation With Daughters of Shandong Author Eve J. Chung

Historical fiction writers need to serve two masters. The first is a strict adherence to facts, location, and real-life characters. The other is effective world-building through relatable characters. Eve J. Chung’s new novel Daughters of Shandong is a confident, gripping, heart pounding epic that perfectly balances those priorities. Chuang, a women’s civil rights lawyer said “Chinese people have a saying ‘Zhong nan qing nu,’ …’Value men, belittle women.’ Sexism was, and still is, so ingrained in our culture that many […]

Boston February 3, 2024 0

MBTA Head Philip Eng: We Need to Reimagine Our Entire System

Philip Eng was named General Manager and CEO of the beleaguered Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority on March 27, 2023. When Gov. Healey used the word “desperate” in her introduction of Eng to describe a commuting public looking to turnaround the bedraggled system, few would accuse her of hyperbole. Eng had a tough job ahead of him. It’s been sixty years this summer since the MBTA was created as the first combined regional transit system in the United States, serving 78 […]

Boston January 12, 2024 0

Over One Hundred Years Strong Through the Eyes of Two Centenarians

The anxiety about growing old and dying can be obsessive for some but others embrace the challenge. Today, Sampan explores this duality through the eyes of two local centenarians and two experts on aging. On January 1, 2024, according to the Chinese Lunar Calendar, Amy Guen turned 101 years old. She keeps health at the forefront of her mind. “If I don’t, the doctors will!” she chuckled as we wrapped up our long conversation about her family’s history as providers […]

Front Page September 16, 2023 0

Tradition Meets Gentrification: Livia Blackburne on Her Novel Clementine and Danny Save the World (and Each Other)

The balance between creating a trendy world in Fantasy novels or contemporary Young Adult (YA) fiction and managing to say something that matters can be tricky. More often than not, genre fiction asks only that the writer provide strictly what their audience wants, nothing more and nothing less. In Livia Blackburne’s sweet new YA novel Clementine and Danny Save the World (and Each Other) that balance is front and center. Blackburne gives us Clementine Chan and Danny Mok. She’s a […]

Boston September 2, 2023 0

Igniting Promise and Hope: Boston’s SPARK Council

For many of us, Labor Day marks the unofficial beginning of the year. Whether we’re many years from having finished high school or college, and whether or not we have children of our own we need to help prepare for the new school year, the promise of starting fresh is as much in the air as the gradual changing from summer to fall. The sun will rise later in the morning, new schedules will start surfacing for everything from day […]

Leisure August 19, 2023 0

An Interview with For the Beauty of the Earth: Solutions to Net Zero Energy author Frank C. Pao

Frank C. Pao has spent more than twenty years as a leader in the fields of energy and technology. The stated mission of his organization Climate X Change is to focus on achieving an equitable zero-emissions economy through means of an advanced state policy. Sampan recently had the opportunity to ask Mr. Pao about this delicate balance between the urgency of saving the planet while dealing with the sometimes volatile and unpredictable nature of the human condition. SAMPAN: One of the more interesting and refreshing elements of your new […]

Boston August 18, 2023 0

Organizers Give Update on Chinatown Master Plan

The Chinatown Master Plan was first developed in 1990 to respond to residential concerns about competing demands for affordable housing and institutional expansion in Chinatown. As we reach nearly three and a half years since the start of COVID, and the release of the 2020 version of the report, Sampan convened a discussion with Chinatown Community Land Trust Executive Director Lydia Lowe, Pao Arts Center Director Cynthia Woo, and Asian Community Development Corporation Executive Director Angie Liou to discuss successes, […]

Front Page July 22, 2023 0

Peace, Reunification, and Healing: an Interview with Crossings Director Deann Borshay Liem on the two Koreas and Hopes for Resolution after Seventy Years

Emmy Award-Winning documentarian Deann Borshay Liem’s new film Crossings examines the 2015 journey a group of female peace activists takes to call attention to the still unresolved issues between North and South Korea. It starts streaming on July 22 at midnight on worldchannel.org, WORLD’s YouTube and the PBS app ahead of the July 23 television broadcast on WORLD at 10pm ET. SAMPAN: Your work is often about identity and the repercussions of history. Crossings shows, among other things, how the […]

Front Page June 10, 2023 0

Stay True: Hua Hsu’s Memoir About Friendship, Identity, and Assimilation

Friendship memoirs can be a tricky genre to navigate. By definition, the writer is on the outside of the narrative: The focus is defining the importance of the relationship. Ann Patchett’s 2004 memoir Truth and Beauty comes immediately to mind. Its evocation of the writer’s relationship with poet Lucy Grealy worked because the focus rested on the symbiotic connection between writer and her subject. In Hua Hsu’s remarkable 2022 Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir Stay True, that symbiosis takes on an even […]

Boston May 27, 2023 0

Asian Hate in Boston: The Struggle for Justice Continues

The problem of Asian hate crimes in Boston and surrounding neighborhoods was the topic of a May 8 forum at the Asian American Civic Association. In attendance and speaking were City Council President Ed Flynn, Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement Monique Tú Nguyen, Executive Director of Lawyers for Civil Rights Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, Boston Police Community Service Office Sgt. Paul Chevette, MBTA Transit Police Crime Investigation Sgt. Joseph Sacco, and Boston’s Senior Advisor for Community Safety Isaac […]

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