Preserving Chinese American History

Race Against Time: Saving the Largest Archive of Chinese American History From Fire

During the late 1970s, Charles Lai and John Kuo Wei Tchen started to collect the abandoned belongings of Chinese Americans in New York's Chinatown, a historical neighborhood dating back to the 1870s. Eager to learn more about the community's history, they collected items from Chinese elderly "bachelors", "men who went to the US when exclusionary laws still prevented women and family members from joining them", as well as items from old businesses that were closing down due to the expiring of the city's 99-year leases. Items ranged from photographs, costumes, and typewriters to art, most notably pieces of sculpture. These items, although simply considered trash by most, even by the inhabitants of Chinatown, were in fact essential in painting the picture of historical Chinese American culture. As more and more items were collected over the years, some notable items being the "papers and possessions of Hazel Ying Lee, a WWII pilot and the first Chinese-American woman to fly for the US military" and "a Pan Am Airlines bag from Richard Nixon's historic 1972 China trip", many began to see the historical and cultural significance of the collection, which eventually led to the creation of the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA). In January of this year, however, a fire broke out in the building where the museum is located. While nothing was damaged by the fire, the subsequent firefighting efforts left the collection drenched. A rescue was made to recover the pieces, and the community, as well as other organizations, helped raise $23,000 for MOCA and their recovery efforts. Luckily, the collection was transported to freezing facilities (to prevent water damage and mold) just in time, as the city was put on lockdown due to COVID-19. The museum and its efforts are intensely important, perhaps now more than ever "amid rising xenophobia, tensions between the US and China and increasing American nationalism" as a result of the virus. The museum's president, Nancy Yao Maasbach, remains hopeful, intent on seeing the museum expand even further, stating "Nothing can replace looking at real artifacts, at family albums, hearing oral histories, seeing the documents from all these milestones in Asian history...That's the importance of this collection". 

Dressed to Impress (Men): Japanese Women's Forced Dress Code

Japanese Women Rebel Against Painful Dress Codes

In Japan, the dress code for many businesses is very strict, especially for women. Women who work in many formal Japanese businesses and firms have to either wear uniforms, or more often than not, follow a very conservative dress code, both of which require them to wear short, but very painful heels. In the formal business setting, "More than 60% of Japanese women with jobs have been forced to squeeze their feet into heels at work or have witnessed colleagues having to". Ishikawa Yumi, a funeral parlor usher stated that she had to go about her 8-hour shift in heels, remarking how "Women have always been told to follow the dress code, even if it causes pain", being told to endure the pain. Many young women like Ms. Ishikawa are even deterred from wearing glasses in the workplace, their bosses claiming they are unflattering (even when their male workers can openly wear them). In addition to her complaints on Twitter about women being required to wear heels in the workplace, Ms. Ishikawa was also able to gather "18,800 signatures on a petition calling for a ban on employers requiring women to wear high heels, which she submitted to the government last June" as a result of the popularity of her Tweet. However, the petition has not received any formal response since its submission last year. A former labor minister who received the petition even stated that it was "necessary and appropriate” for women to wear heels for work. However, despite the dismal government response to the petition, there have been gradual changes within some businesses in Japan. For example, Japan Airlines has announced that its female flight attendants can swap their heels for heel-less shoes, and that they can wear trousers instead of skirts if they would like. Ms. Ishikawa has also started to collaborate with a shoe company to produce "chic heel-less shoes" for women to wear for work. She hopes that the rules regarding footwear will gradually begin to change in the future.

Myanmar's Wizards

Magical Spells are a Booming Business in Myanmar

Within recent years, Myanmar has seen an increasing interest in magic and the occult. From historical times, Buddhists have believed that one can be granted supernatural powers by practicing extreme piety. Burmese weizza, or wizards, who claim to "apparently fly, turn base metals into gold and attain immortality" as well as "to perk up [individual's] profits, make them more attractive, banish evil spirits and remove tumours" have received many more followers, especially within the last decade. Under politician Ne Win, chairman of the Burma Socialist Programme Party, weizza were marginalized as he feared and envied them and their supporters, worried "that they might overthrow him by, for instance, [by] raising an army of ghosts". His fear was so extreme, that he even "banned their magazines and books, and had portrayals of weizza scrubbed from films and other media". As political power was ceded to civilians after Myanmar's military regime was dissolved in 1988, weizza gained more prominence within society. With the abolition of media censorship within the nation in 2012, weizza have been able to reach a larger audience by using social media, broadcasting their healing demonstrations through Facebook and Youtube, acquiring many more clients, as well as students who wish to learn from them. Being that Myanmar's healthcare system is "rickety", many still turn to weizza to be healed of their ailments, often remarking that the ceremonies performed have cured them and have been successful.

𝘏𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘮𝘪 in the Midst of COVID-19

Japan’s Cherry Blossoms in a Time of Coronavirus 

Japan's custom of cherry blossom viewing, or hanami, has been a quintessential part of its past and present, an entire chapter even having been devoted to it within the Heian-period classic The Tale of Genji. The viewings traditionally occur within the months of March and April, marking the arrival of Spring, and millions of people use the event as a way to escape the monotony of work-life, often setting up picnics to enjoy under the falling petals. In light of current events, however, these viewings have become worrisome issues for the Japanese government. While the government has urged people to avoid gatherings and events “that involve food and drink”, the public still continues to flock to parks to view the blooms. Despite being one of the countries with the most cases COVID-19 after China only a month ago, the spread in Japan has seemingly plateaued. Even with its population of around 14 million people, Japan "has recorded a little over 100 cases [of COVID-19] and just two deaths" as a result of the virus. While the reason behind the slowing of the spread is still quite unknown, the reason perhaps stemming from the country's traditional social culture, or the general maintenance of public hygiene, many citizens have slowly begun to resume everyday life, with "schools in some areas are already preparing to re-open and there are calls for a loosening of restrictions on large public events". However, with the rise in cases within Kansai, and as the majority of the population is within the age bracket of people most as risk (60 years and older), the Japanese government has taken perhaps rather reluctant precautions to prevent the virus from spreading exponentially, such as with the postponing of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which will certainly impact the Japanese economy. Despite all of these measures taken, the public still continues to head out to the parks to view the blooms, the tradition unable to be stripped away. 

The Language Barrier Between Singaporeans

Singapore Has Almost Wiped Out Its Mother Tongues

Younger generations of Singaporeans, especially Chinese Singaporeans, are having a greater difficulty communicating with not only elderly people within their communities, but elderly people within their own families. Being that Singapore has stressed the teaching of English within schools since 1987 (to increase the country's "global competitive edge"), and the fact that the only secondary languages are either Mandarin, Malay or Tamil, this makes it extremely difficult for young people to speak with their elders, who, more often than not, do not speak these more standardized languages. This divide was primarily brought about by the “Speak Mandarin Campaign” of 1979, which sought to eliminate the Singaporean mother tongues of Hokkien, Cantonese, and Hakka (which came from Singaporean origins in the southern provinces of China). This campaign also brought about the erroneous belief that the Singaporean mother languages were nothing more than dialects that prevented a single Chinese identity from flourishing within the country, the government going as far as to publicly proclaim "To speak dialect with your child is to ruin his future". This thus brought about the dissolving of dialects within households by 78% in 1980, and even as current as 2015, with a 15% decrease in vernacular. The sheer extent to which English has been stressed as one of the national languages of Singapore is astounding, even beating out Mandarin, with "over 70% of households with children at primary school" using English as their primary language. Despite this overshadowing of the mother languages, recent sentiments have risen in support of them, even at a high political level, such as with current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who "claims to be proud of Singapore’s unique form of Mandarin". While his true feelings towards the mother languages could only be to emphasize a single Chinese identity, there seems to still remain a sort of sentimentality towards the languages. Recently, many younger Chinese Singaporeans have embraced the mother languages, taking classes to learn Hokkien, Hakka, and Cantonese to better communicate with their elderly family members. 

Japan's Craftspeople

The Future of Japan's Master Artisans

Throughout its history and well into modern times, Japan has been renowned for its attention to detail, not only in its catering to individuals within everyday life, but also in its artistry when creating products. Within Japan, there is a sector of traditional artists called shokunin, or craftspeople, who specialize in and are devoted to their specific region of art. One notable example of this is shokuhin sampuru, PVC food display samples made for restaurants that are intricately painted and modeled to look just like, if not better than the food served. Japan takes this even further, often taking its simplest of items and products, and extending and refining their potential in order to make it the best that it can be, such as with 94-year-old chef Jiro Ono who has gained acclaim in the past from serving exceptional sushi to Barack Obama and Abe Shinzo. Japan's population is further aging, and supplemented by the fact these craftspeople have spent most of their lives fine-tuning their skills to make their art, a fear has come about that these works will soon be lost without proper successors. Takeshi Tashiro, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics solidifies this decline, remarking that the “output of traditional craftsmanship has declined from 540bn yen ($4.8bn) in 1983 to 96bn yen in 2016, according to the Association for the Promotion of Traditional Craft Industries”. However, there has come about an insurgence of younger shokunin that have begun to carry the torch, adapting their artistry for modern times, such as with Yuya Hasegawa, who has elevated shoe-shining to fit the contemporary market. In a similar manner, Yozo Otsuki, whose parents once owned a jazz coffee shop, now runs Kurasu, a specialty coffee shop in Kyoto that sells artisanal coffee and coffee equipment. With this new group of shokunin, artists and business owners alike are widening their markets, selling their products overseas, and even participating in collaborations to entice the public, and to keep the crafts of shokunin alive.

Cell-Grown Prawns and Their Potential

How Artificial Shrimps Could Change the World

While prawns and shrimp are comparatively minuscule when placed against cattle, their damage to the environment is equally, if not more so detrimental. As their cultivation seemingly does not produce any sort of negative impact on the environment, or aggravate global warming as the methane produced from cattle, or the deforestation caused by the maintenance of their pastureland, one would readily assume that the cultivation of shrimp has no repercussions. However, the aquaculture required to cultivate these shrimp displace and destroy coastal mangrove swamps that are essential in preventing flooding and erosion. Even if people were to refer to consuming wild shrimp instead, to prevent the destruction of natural habitats, this would only further exacerbate the steadily declining wild population. With the cultivation and harvesting of shrimp not only comes environmental damage, but extremely unfair and dangerous working conditions for fishermen, who are more often than not, victims of human trafficking and child labor. According to some interviews done by the UN on Cambodian fishermen, many commented on their working conditions being akin to slavery, and "59% of them reported seeing fellow crew-members murdered by the captain". In order to combat this ongoing cycle of detriment, Shiok Meats, a Singaporean-based company is currently attempting to create their own artificial shrimp from "propagating shrimp cells in a nutrient-rich solution", much like Western countries are attempting to produce meat without the use of cows. As shrimp is simpler in terms of biologic complexity, it should be easier to produce in a laboratory setting. While the thought of cell-grown meat can be a bit disconcerting, Shiok Meats is seeking to produce shrimp that will be favorable to all palates, which will hopefully be a bit easier as "shrimp is eaten in lots of forms and textures: whole, minced, as a paste and so on". However, as with all cell-based food production, these shrimp will surely come at a steep price. Hopefully, with the advances in cell-based food production and technology, these more ethical and sustainable versions of food will become more affordable in the coming years.