Leisure

September 4, 2022 0

Lantern Stories, by Yu-Wen Lu, at Chinatown’s Chin Park, Boston, MA. August 2022

The Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy recently re-installed Lantern Stories in Chinatown’s Chin Park. It’s by Taiwan native and Boston-based interdisciplinary artist Yu-Wen Wu. While its first iteration in 2020 was embraced by the community, it faced COVID-19 restrictions. With this new iteration, Wu created new images that evoked the reality of exclusion acts and racial hatred and the necessity of unity and cohesion. This 2022 version of Lantern Stories also features contributions from other local artists. Wu’s themes cover migration, displacement, arrival, assimilation, and […]

August 23, 2022 0

Magnificent Beast: an eye-opening Documentary

by Sonia Cavazos

An animal underestimated, and sometimes unseen. Underappreciated…and porcine. Questions of the history of pork taboo and the interesting relationship between pigs and humans has given birth to an astounding documentary: Magnificent Beast. Headed by Maine-based Asian American author Tess Gerritsen (author of the famed novels turned tv-series, Rizzoli and Isles) and her son Josh, this documentary travels the world to find why some cultures abstain from pork, the evolution of the pig population, and the pig’s dynamic relationship with people. From taking […]

August 21, 2022 0

Sharing Mooncakes and Love at Mid-Autumn Festival

by Max Wei

There are different shapes of mooncakes with different stuffings and skins. Usually, the skin is made of wheat powder, but now there are also ice skins made of sticky rice powder. The stuffing of mooncakes varies depending on the cities and provinces: Beijing style, Jiangsu style, Ningbo style, Shanghai style, Hong Kong style. In northern and southern China, the stuffing of the mooncakes is usually sweet, made of ingredients like sugar, red beans, and lotus seed. In the middle region, […]

August 20, 2022 0

CCBA Presents the 52nd Annual Chinatown August Moon Festival

by Sampan Staff

Photos from the 52nd Annual August Moon Festival, August 14, 2022 at Phillips Square in Chinatown, sponsored by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New England. Boston officials, including Mayor Michelle Wu and Police Superintendent James K. Chin, along with the New England Kung Fu Dance Association and the Boston Chinese Folk dance group, welcomed the coming fall season with a festival of joy and health. From all of us here at Sampan to all of you in Boston and beyond, best […]

August 9, 2022 1

Samurai Summer II: The exciting festival returns to Boston

by Sonia Cavazos

Filmmakers fight for inspiration. Directors dream and build their vision for the screen but each is influenced. Whether it is by a person or a culture, everyone is sparked by another work, and the Coolidge Theatre is showing just how much Japan has influenced film with a dazzling line up in their Samurai Summer II. This sequel is a carefully planned follow up to the debut in 2021. Created as a celebration of their 30th anniversary, the Coolidge Theatre began […]

August 8, 2022 0

Meeting Our Neighbors at the Chinatown Summer Ice Cream Social

by Christopher John Stephens

Tufts University Government and Community Relations hosted an Ice Cream Social in the neighborhood on the Health Sciences Campus in Chinatown on July 21st. It was a great opportunity to beat the heat and meet our neighbors. This reporter had the opportunity to interview Liza Perry, Deputy Director, Tufts University Government and Community Relations, about the past, present, and future of Tufts University’s role in the Chinatown community. What initiatives are you hoping to launch after the summer’s over? We […]

August 5, 2022 0

The August Moon Festival 2022: What’s Happening, Where, and When

by Sampan Staff

The Chinese August Moon festival is traditionally celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the Chinese lunisolar calendar. It is believed that the roundness of the moon represents the reunion of family in Chinese minds. For over 2000 years the usually three day celebration has been a time for a post-Autumn harvest celebration giving thanks to the gods for the blessings of hard work and family. Foods served include mooncakes, pumpkin, river snails, taro, wine fermented with […]

June 17, 2022 0

Thank You, Mr. Nixon: stories Gish Jen’s fiction looks at the complicated 50 year legacy of China/U.S. normalized relations

by Christopher John Stephens

Going back to 1949, according to history.state.gov, the U.S.Ambassador had met with Communist Ambassadors to discuss U.S. recognition of the newly declared (as of October 1, 1949) PRC (People’s Republic of China.) Had Mao not declared his intention to side with the Soviet Union, recognition could have come much earlier than 1972. The United States stayed out of the Chinese Civil War, even though “the Truman Administration was prepared to abandon the Nationalists and allow the Communists to take over […]

May 24, 2022 0

Japanese Breakfast and Mitski: Two Asian American Musicians Expanding the Conversation on Representation in Popular American Culture

by Moninisha Yadav

What is ‘indie rock’? Is it truly free from the restraints of corporate record label mandates, or is it simply the audio equivalent of a finely assembled glossy fashion spread in a magazine? Commerce usually likes to think it can manage the tastes and inclinations of the record-buying public, but in recent years some artists have challenged and expanded the pre-conceived notions of genre conventions that have been long populated (and dictated) by white people. Japanese Breakfast and Mitski are […]

May 24, 2022 0

Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Asian Cultural Appropriation

by Sampan Staff

Comic book fans are an insistent subgroup of art aficionados. Some might go so far as to say they are belligerent. They covet elements of their heroes; Superman’s cape, Captain America’s shield, Spiderman’s mask, as if they are talisman objects of veneration. They hang objects on their walls, wear costumes during Halloween, don the same outfits at Comic Conventions, and blur the lines between a preoccupation and religious observation. Where faith has always depended on a creation myth to explain […]

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