Little did anyone know, the gashadokuro would eventually be available for purchase at your local Home Depot, not to annihilate one's enemies, but to annoy one's suburban housing association at Halloween.

I developed my robot class about 6 years ago and have taught it intermittently. This is the first time the class has felt more or less close to the present day. We are reading "Goodbye, Melancholy" this week. clarkesworldmagazine.com/xia_03_17/

Re-reading Koji Ariyoshi (Kona born Hawai'ian JA communist and China expert)'s autobiography this morning. I found the end of his preface striking. It was written when Ariyoshi faced trial and jail time for organizing a communist party in Hawai'i. Words to think about in these times, I think.

Is the victim was that one person at a faculty meeting who says "Well, I just have one more thing to add..." as everyone is standing up to leave at the end of the meeting?

The best spots in Koreatown are @metrolosangeles.bsky.social accessible 🫰 K-town organizer John Yi shares his favorite neighborhood gems along Metro’s D Line. 🎥: @marinamasako.bsky.social

This unfortunately reminds me that even with a pronunciation guide, the dean who read my name when I got my PhD butchered it so bad I didn't recognize it and afterward my dad was so mad I had to stop him from trying to go fight the dean after the ceremony.

SEEKING SUMMER ARCHIVAL INTERN We are looking for an assistant to archive and document the Paradise Systems Chinese comics library. Must be comfortable reading Chinese comics (simplified and traditional) and writing about them in English. A background in translation is a plus.

"Our current situation is a complete provocation by the state - tearing families apart and throwing people into concentration camps is violence. They are kidnapping people and locking them in the LA federal detention center basement without food or water.” 1/

We feed you. They hunt us.

Working hard to defend the rights, dignity, and well-being of immigrants, refugees, and the undocumented, they need our help more than ever right now. You can find this article and all resources to combat ICE on a special link we created. Lataco.com/ice Please share

I feel a lot of ways about what is happening in my hometown, but one of them is that after today I really never want to have to hear anyone tell me that they don't really like LA and think SF is a lot nicer again.

我城

When LA *really* pops off, in the way that LA does, neither DHS nor LAPD will be able to contain it. It's not going to happen tonight, but I suspect it's going to happen before long this summer. And once LA gets going, there's really no stopping the crowds.

So.... have I got some lovely HK protest er... art for you

DHS Officers near MDC coming out of the parking lot now in LA. At least one detention. Lots of stun grenades, pepper balls, chemical munitions. Rocks, chairs, water bottles in return. LAPD is blocking traffic to the area.

Heavily-armed DHS paramilitary forces in military vehicles fired dozens of stun grenades at a crowd of onlookers today in Los Angeles.

Thanks to the very capable editorial team at @ricochetmedia.bsky.social for helping to push this through, on the occasion of the 77th anniversary of the Nakba and Asian Heritage Month.

I got the first two of these unsuccessfully trying to take a pic of what I think was the first Swainson's thrush of the year.

I still think about a fellow Asian in grad school who told me that she refused to sign a DREAMer petition when her student asked her to because "she came the right way" and when the student said he himself was a DREAMer, she said "I don't care. You should still come the right way."

The Book of Kane and Margaret was the camp novel I never knew I needed until I read it. It remains a camp novel unlike any other and the absolute weirdest one I have ever read. I've been waiting to read more by Araki-Kawaguchi ever since.

"The average American has three friends"

For a while, I have found it kind of funny that the guy who was the featured speaker at the AmeriCorps conference was a US senator now and a very famous one at that, but it's beyond strange now that I was once in a very large room with a dude who would become this guy.

My new article “Hong Kong’s Leftist Poetry: Sinophone and/or Huawen?” is included in this stellar volume Justyna Jaguścik, Joanna Krenz, and Andrea Riemenschnitter put together: Lyrical Experiments in Sinophone Verse: Time, Space, Bodies, and Things! www.aup.nl/en/book/9789...

Pretty sure I saw my first Horned Grebe today. Unfortunately quite far away and not my best picture.

🔵🪶 Chickadee #formline #telekitneticart #indigenousart

When I taught Wei Yahua's Robot Wife Divorce story, the class was creeped out by the passage describing how a man could see a woman he thought was cute walking around, go to a robot wife store, and make a robot wife who looked just like her. I normally don't find that story prescient, but...

Honored and grateful to be among those chosen for this grant!

Notably absent: any UC campus that is not UC Riverside any CSU campus that is not CSU San Bernadino In comparison w the institutions singled out below: how many students overall do these uni systems serve? How many students likely to be affected do these uni systems serve?

One thing I really appreciate as a non-specialist in premodern Chinese lit is that there are historical figures who we all know are hot, even though we have no idea what they looked like. History has not recorded this, it informed us of the verdict of the court of public opinion.

Sameer Project needs your help. They are in urgent need of funds to continue to help supplying water to people in Gaza. Yesterday they supplied 85,000 liters of fresh drinking water to people who otherwise would receive none. Please donate and share.

In Mahmoud Khalil's letter from ICE detention in Louisiana, he cites Japanese American incarceration and Mitsuye Endo, who was incarcerated in the Tule Lake concentration camp, and whose case before the Supreme Court led to the closing of the camps. Read his letter here: t.ly/A04cc

As good an excuse as any to share some of my favorite bee pics from the garden last year.

Here's the Bluesky post. This is incredible. Now the goal will be to get him home. And I want to hear what Senator Van Hollen learned from him. What this shows is that Bukele is very much susceptible to pressure. Now we can't forget about the other 237 people sent there on March 15.

I'm reminded in this moment of the language of JA removal in which issei were referred to as aliens and the native born as "non-aliens".

“Julio Zambrano Perez exemplifies what America represents,” the director of his daughter’s preschool wrote, “working hard, planning for the future, raising the next generation of responsible citizens.”

I would really like to see more mainsteam English news outlets covering stories like this rather than solely focusing on white detainees. The relentless trickle of only headlines focusing on a few white migrants suggests implicitly that it's ok if it is happening everyone else.

Not my normal lane, but I've been hearing a new bird call through my closed windows for weeks. Thanks to the @birdsoftheworld.bsky.social app Merlin, IDed it as an, er, Merlin. New one for me. I finally went out with a camera and got a photo and figured out where the pair is nesting.

I've never been more proud to have married my husband there. JANM is not a major museum, unlike some of the others who seem to have not wanted to speak on record for this story. This decision does not come without risk and certainly not without cost.

J1851.1.4 Wool taken to pond for frogs and toads to weave.

I went to a good conference last week on translation and the Sinophone hosted by @chrissonghk.bsky.social, feat. @myetcetera.bsky.social, @ciwasaki.bsky.social and a lot of other folks. But I want to talk about one of the venues, the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library 利銘澤典宬, short thread:

The national and local Conservatives have reportedly been at odds at times over candidate selection. But what is unique with this #CdnElxn2025 is the number of candidates who were seemingly chosen in spite, or because, of their proximity to controversy or extreme views. Christopher Holcroft writes.

Evan on our multiple missing vegetable peelers: Maybe the mice took them. Maybe there's a king mouse and it's their Excalibur.

I kind of wish Twitter wasn't horrible because I feel like I was better connected there, but if you are in the GTA, I will be participating in this and you should come say hi.

It is honestly crazy that the MLA has a special category slot for Esperanto Literature, but all Asian Literatures have one generalized category slot in March 2025.

Your move, Digital Orientalists @digitalorientalist.bsky.social

I am going to start keeping a running thread of all the times I have caught Mason available from @safeteamrescue.bsky.social for adoption being a little mug pirate. It's literally one of the first things I ever knew about him when we started fostering him. All just plain water btw.

I scream-laughed so loud in my own home at this news that my cat got worried about me. Oh my god.