Daily Dose: 03/26/08

» AsianWeek Market Report
» Little Saigon Bus Cements Community Ties in California
» San Jose City Council Approves ‘Little Saigon’ Banners
» The Origins of Pilipino Culture Night
» Resolution Calls for Release of Political Prisoner
» Paramount to Screen ‘The Love Guru’ for Zed and Other Hindu Leaders
» South Korean Court: ‘Love Shot’ Can Be Sexual Harassment
» Over 80% of Taiwanese Support New President
» S. Korean School Sues Yale for $50M

AsianWeek Market Report

BAY:

Little Saigon Bus Cements Community Ties in California

Linh Hoang Nguyen operates Xe Do Hoang, the bus service that connects Orange County’s Little Saigon with a similar ethnic enclave in San Jose.

For Nguyen, it started out pretty small in 1999 with a few vans. Today, he operates two buses daily to and from San Jose. For $35 one way, passengers get a bottle of water, a large baguette sandwich and a jelly dessert. And they get to San Jose in about six hours.

Just as Chinatowns around the country have their bus networks, xe dos, which means “buses” in Vietnamese, form a network between Little Saigon, home to the largest Vietnamese population outside Vietnam, and San Jose, where the Vietnamese population is rapidly increasing.

Apart from Nguyen’s, which is the only bus service that operates full-sized buses, smaller operators such as Xe Do Loc and Xe Do Long Thanh carry passengers in vans to Las Vegas and Arizona.

— Nguoi-Viet

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San Jose City Council Approves ‘Little Saigon’ Banners

After months of protests, rallies and even a hunger strike, the San Jose City Council voted on March 25 to allow “Welcome to Little Saigon” banners to informally recognize a Vietnamese retail area on Story Road.

The 10-0 vote brought an end to the incredible uproar over the last several months after the council voted to call the area “Saigon Business District,” enraging thousands in the community who wanted “Little Saigon.”

The council’s vote paves the way for the community to raise money and then get city approval for temporary banners on Story Road between Highway 101 and Senter Road. The banners are likely to be made permanent once the city comes up with a new process for naming business districts — to ensure that the ideas come from the ground up and to avert future political disasters over naming.

Officials don’t know how soon they can mount the banners, but approval of the design could take up to 45 days.

— Mercury News

NATION:

The Origins of Pilipino Culture Night

Filipino American college students are gearing up for what has become an annual FilAm ritual: Pilipino Cultural Night.

PCN is essentially a variety show featuring dance routines, songs and skits about the Filipino and Filipino American experience. The productions typically include an unusual mix of ethnic and modern acts from the tinikling and the singkil to hip-hop or break-dance routines.

The PCN began sometime in the 1970s in California, where Filipinos steadily emerged as one of the largest Asian American communities. The tradition was initiated by children of Filipinos immigrants who came to the United States in the 1960s, after less restrictive immigration laws led to a wave of newcomers from the Philippines.

Seeking ways to reconnect with the homeland of their parents, they began mounting performances on college campuses. By the end of the 20th century, PCN had become a tradition in hundreds of campuses not only in California but in other states as well.

— INQUIRER.net

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Resolution Calls for Release of Political Prisoner

WASHINGTON — Three U.S. representatives, including Californians Zoe Lofgren and Dan Lungren, have introduced a resolution calling for the release of Dr. Nguyen Quoc Quan and other political prisoners being held by the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Nguyen, a U.S. citizen, is being held by the Vietnamese government for speaking out against human rights violations committed by the Communist government. The resolution also calls on the State Department to re-designate Vietnam as a “Country of Particular Concern,” and for the removal of permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status with Vietnam unless all political and religious prisoners are released and significant and immediate human rights reforms are made by the government.

“The thugs in Hanoi continue to imprison and torture at will,” Rep. Lofgren noted. “As long as the Vietnamese government continues violating basic human and religious rights, I will continue advocating for the removal of PNTR.”

— Nguoi-viet

ARTS:

Paramount to Screen ‘The Love Guru’ for Zed and Other Hindu Leaders

Paramount Pictures recently agreed to screen upcoming Hollywood movie The Love Guru for Hindu leaders, who requested to see the film over concerns about the portrayal of Hinduism.

The Universal Society of Hinduism said the movie appeared to be lampooning Hinduism. Rajan Zed, president of the society, had demanded that it be shown to Hindu representatives prior to its public release.

“Hollywood is trying to make money by laughing at our holy men and in the process creating a stereotype,” said Lila D. Sharma, president of India Heritage Panel.

The film is about an American, raised in an ashram in India, who moves back to the U.S. as Guru Pitka to seek fame and fortune in the world of self-help and spirituality.

A publicist from Paramount Pictures called the film “a satire created in the same spirit as Austin Powers. Along with Mike Myers, the film stars Jessica Alba, Verne Troyer, Justin Timberlake, Romany Malco, Deepak Chopra and Manu Narayan (who comes from a Hindu background).”

— American Buddhist Net News

GLOBAL:

South Korean Court: ‘Love Shot’ Can Be Sexual Harassment

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s top court ruled on March 25 that a so-called “love shot,” in which a couple drinks glasses of alcohol with their arms intertwined, doesn’t always signify affection and can be a form of harassment.

The Supreme Court fined a man 3 million won (US$3,070; euro2,000) for forcing a restaurant waitress to drink alcohol with him in a love shot, court spokesman Kang Kyu-seok said.

Judges ruled that the man’s behavior was tantamount to sexual harassment, Kang said.

The owner of a construction company forced the waitress at a golf course restaurant in 2005 to wrap her arm around his neck while he did the same to her while drinking shots, “an advanced version of a love shot,” Kang said. The man, a golf club member, threatened to get her fired if she refused, he said.

The man acknowledged that he drank with her in a love shot but insisted that she had agreed to do so, the court said.

— Associated Press

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Over 80% of Taiwanese Support New President

HONG KONG — A survey by Taiwan media shows that 86% of Taiwanese willingly accept Ying-jeou Ma as Taiwan’s president.

Of them, 79% are “very satisfied” at Ma’s win. Only 5% of Taiwanese expressed difficulty in accepting Ma as president.

The main reasons for people supporting Ma are economics and the possibility of maintaining a peaceful relationship with mainland China. Prior to the election, Ma had said it’s possible that Taiwan would boycott the Beijing Olympics if he were elected Taiwan’s president. But on March 24, when he met with the baseball team representing Taiwan in the Olympics, Ma said he’s glad that they were going to participate in the games.

— Ming Pao News

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S. Korean School Sues Yale for $50M

A South Korean college is suing top U.S. university Yale for $50 million over an administrative error that snowballed into a national scandal.

Dongguk University made Shin Jeong-ah its art history professor in 2005 after Yale confirmed she had graduated there. Two years later, claims emerged that Shin, the lover of a presidential aide, had never studied there. Yale then said it had confirmed her degree by mistake.

Dongguk told a U.S. court the scandal had “irreparably damaged” its reputation.

In the fallout from “Shingate,” as the affair has been dubbed by the Korean media, several other leading academics in South Korea were exposed as having lied about their degrees. Shin is now on trial in South Korea for forgery, a charge she denies.

In papers filed in Connecticut District Court, the Seoul university says it has been “labeled as being dishonest and has been held up to disgrace and ridicule.”

— BBC News

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Compiled by Irene Aranya