Boston

September 2, 2023 0

September 2023 Service Changes On the MBTA

As we start a new month, go back to school, and soon welcome a new season, more changes to public transit are coming to city commuters. In an effort to keep our readers informed, Sampan will publish regular updates. September service changes will happen on the Red Line Braintree Branch for MBTA crews to perform critical rail and tie replacement work. Accessible shuttle bus service will replace Red Line trains between North Quincy and Braintree Stations on the following dates: […]

September 2, 2023 0

Igniting Promise and Hope: Boston’s SPARK Council

by Christopher John Stephens

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 […]

September 1, 2023 0

‘Realm of Appearances’ at MFA Gives Window Into Brief Life of Artist Matthew Wong

by Harmony Witte

The Matthew Wong retrospective, The Realm of Appearances is on display now at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is a moving exhibit with around 40 examples of the self-taught contemporary artist’s work. The retrospective spans the 6 short years of Wong’s career as an outsider artist after he began to paint and draw steadily until he took his life at the age of 35 in 2019. In the exhibit are some rare examples of his early work and a […]

August 19, 2023 0

Letter from Mayor Wu’s Chinatown Liaison

by Chulan Huang

Hello Sampan readers! I hope you all are having a wonderful summer. It’s hard to believe that we’re already almost at the end of August. I’m personally looking forward to the fall, which is my favorite season in Boston. The weather is starting to cool down, the leaves are changing color, and there are always so many great things to do in the city. Oh and of course, I am all too excited to celebrate the August Moon Festival! In […]

August 18, 2023 0

Organizers Give Update on Chinatown Master Plan

by Christopher John Stephens

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, […]

August 5, 2023 0

Converting Used Office Buildings Into Affordable Housing: Who are the Real Stakeholders

by Kristen Si

There is no doubt that the city of Boston is currently in the midst of a housing crisis. In the Boston Foundation’s annual report, the Greater Boston area received a failing grade in the year of 2022. The report cites confounding factors of economic growth and rising housing prices with the bottom line that middle and lower-income families will be struggling in the coming years to find affordable housing options if new policies are not adopted. The current issues will […]

August 4, 2023 0

Living Your Best Life: It Takes a Village

by Jeff Millman

A five-minute walk from the historic On Leong Chinese Merchants Association building in Chinatown brings you to the Biewend building on Tremont Street. Dr. Wei Wang, a geriatrician and primary care physician, sees elderly patients here at Tufts Medicine’s primary care offices. He told Sampan that many elderly people living in Chinatown deal with chronic medical conditions like diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. This is true of older adults more generally. In the United States, nearly 95% of […]

August 4, 2023 0

At Home in Chinatown Exhibit: An Interview with Curator Lily Song

by Harmony Witte

This reporter attended the opening reception of the exhibit called “At Home in Chinatown: A Residence Lab Retrospective” and the accompanying workshop “Remembering and Remaking Chinatown” at the Pao Arts Center on July 27th. The exhibit featured work and photographs of the processes of six local artists who participated in the Residence Lab and completed site-specific projects during the last four years of the program. There were 4 key themes on display in the show, including art as cultural belonging, […]

July 21, 2023 0

Ruling on Admissions Invites Mixed Emotions From Sampan Readers

by Sampan Staff

Editor’s Note: Sampan asked a cross-section of Massachusetts residents about the recent court ruling regarding Affirmative Action. We spoke with retired Executives, academics, students, parents, and teenagers. What follows are their emailed responses, edited for clarity and space. I am personally conflicted with how I feel about the overturning of affirmative action for college admissions. On one hand I can see the usefulness of affirmative action and how it creates a more diverse student body which is very important. As […]

July 8, 2023 0

Government Support Must be Increased to Make New Technology Affordable

by Kristen Si

While it may be easy to forget in the summer heat, New England suffers from some of the most brutal winters in the country. With temperatures occasionally dropping below zero degrees Fahrenheit every year, the cost of living in Boston is underlined with the additional cost of keeping people warm in their homes. Annually, New Englanders pay hefty costs for utility bills, with the cost of energy being some of the highest in the country. Using 2022-2023 data, the website […]

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