Arts

April 11, 2025 0

As Some See a Taller Chinatown With New Zoning, Let’s Focus on Getting to the Right Heights

In the black box theater inside Chinatown’s Josiah Quincy School last month, hundreds of people reached into their little gift bags and pulled out small bottles of soap. As Dr. Heang Leung Rubin led the room in a collective wish, her voice was gentle: “Close your eyes and imagine — what could Chinatown look like in ten years?” Kids, young families, seniors, city officials and others all held their wishes in silence. Then, as bubbles filled the room, they caught […]

April 11, 2025 0

REVIEW: ‘White Poverty’ Exposes Myths of Race, Class and Democracy

by Christopher John Stephens

The triple threat Venn Diagram bubbles of race, class, and social identity have conspired to define us as a nation since our founding. As we sit on the eve of our Bisesquicentennial in 2026, Americans are more divided and disturbed than ever before. Who are we? What have we become? Is this the legacy we really want to leave behind for our children? The much discussed (but never fully owned) “Project 2025” has planted seeds and borne fruit in the […]

April 11, 2025 0

‘SenStory’ Breaks Mental Health Taboos With Performing Arts

by Virginia Sun

Elderly Chinatown residents took the stage at the Pao Arts Center last month – some sang karaoke to their favorite classic Chinese songs, a couple of them showed off their jianzi (birdie foot game) skills to the rest of their crowd, while others watched bilingual improv theater sketches in Mandarin and Cantonese. But behind the music, crafts and performing arts enjoyed by the nearly 200 participants, the March 8 event, “SenStory: Home as a Verb” contained a central theme: How […]

Nita Slay outside the Mission Hill Church; Photo by Adam Smith

March 23, 2025 0

Killin’ It: Musician Nita Slay Talks About Cambodian Roots, Love of Language & Christian Influences

by Ava Belchez

Nita Slay, a musician and rapper from Lynn, said she finds pride in the lyrics of “Cambodian Ties,” a song by Foule Monk in which she also sings. In the song, Slay sings: “Cambodian ties / Cambodian in my skin / Breathing in this life / Rejuvenated skin / Cambodian gold / Cambodian sins / Breathing in this life to find the peace within.” “It gives me another lane that I can use that no else can,” said Slay, who […]

March 21, 2025 0

Nobuko Miyamoto Takes Fight for Rights to Boston Stage

by Harmony Witte

Activist legend Nobuko Miyamoto came to Boston for the ArtsEmerson screening of the documentary about her – “Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song in Movement” – and the timing could not have been more appropriate. Amid the anniversary of Executive Order 9066 – which led to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II – and just before immigration authorities began coming after pro-Palestinian protesters, Nobuko Miyamoto graced the stage and enraptured the audience by performing a set of four of […]

March 21, 2025 0

Facing the Scars That Never Heal in Lu Xinhua’s Novel, ‘Wu Lou’

by Christopher John Stephens

Writer Lu Xinhua was just 24-years old in 1978 when he published his breakthrough short story, “The Scar.” Written while a freshman at Fudan University, “The Scar” examined the traumatic legacy of the Cultural Revolution and the decisive, imperious rule of the Gang of Four. In the wake of Mao’s death, China found itself at a crossroads. There was the Beijing Spring, the New Enlightenment, and “Scar Literature” was at the vanguard of what came to be known as a […]

March 7, 2025 1

‘The World Doesn’t Have to Be This Way,’ Says Novelist Celeste Ng, in Sampan Chat

by Christopher John Stephens

The works of bestselling novelist and Cambridge resident Celeste Ng are perhaps more relevant now than ever. Her 2014 work, Everything I Never Told You, looked at the secrets and desires swirling in a Chinese-American family in Ohio during the 1970s. Her Little Fires Everywhere, which she penned in 2017, raised the stakes with the story of a mother and daughter when they intruded on the lives of a “perfect” family in late 1990s Ohio. Given the current political climate […]

February 21, 2025 0

Behind the Drum, Cymbal and Lion, There’s Adrenaline, and Then Hunger

by Anna Hu

This is at once a specific story —one day in Boston Chinatown during the lunar new year parade — and an expansive one, which has played out time and time again in cities around the world. This is a story about colors, red fabric draped over a dancer’s back, golden sequins that catch the light, yellow fur in the lion’s mane, the whites of its eyes. This is a story about sound, the bright crash of red tasseled cymbals, the […]

February 21, 2025 0

Snake Mural Lets Viewers Send Wishes, Artist Hold onto Chinese Heritage

by Adam Smith

A red snake with gold “scales” is winding through the walls of the Pao Arts Center in Chinatown as part of a celebration of the Lunar New Year. “We invited people to come and cut out scales from a gold shimmery paper, and then we prompted them to write or draw their Lunar New Year wish,” said artist Amanda Beard Garcia, who painted the indoor mural over several days in January. “Some people made one wish and a few people […]

February 21, 2025 0

In Sayaka Murata’s World, Love Is Stranger Than Fiction

by Christopher John Stephens

Sometimes the thrill of a strange novel comes in fits and starts. It’s less thrilling in its explosive consistency than it is in its ability to sustain a mood, to build and maintain a premise. Sayaka Murata’s new novel Vanishing World succeeds in more ways than it probably knows. It’s a novel of suppositions. It’s a speculative dystopian story in which society reproduces solely by artificial insemination. Traditional reproduction between a husband and wife is considered incest. As we come […]

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