... ...

IAN CROSSLAND: ... ...

So if all the Chinese Americans, for instance, here with even maybe some family in China, maybe they don't — if there was a war between the Chinese and the Americans, and the Chinese landed in, like, Alaska and started coming through Canada, what — do think we should intern all the Chinese Americans we can find? Because it kind of seems like we should.

LABONTE: Well, I — again, nowadays, I think it's a different context. There were there have been so many people that have come here illegally. China has absolutely been using birth tourism. I mean, tourism. ... ...

LABONTE: Yeah. You know, basically, China has been — there are people that can, or there there are companies that will, you know, fly pregnant women to U.S. territories, so that way ... Once the child's born there, they get a birth certificate, and then back China with them. ...

KEVIN SMITH: I mean, it is so crazy, the concept of birth tourism — there is such a difference between, like, people who are going through the process and want to be here for and then, like, one to, like even if — even if you use — even if you give people the best of intentions, you're pregnant, and then you go on vacation to New York for the Saint Patrick's Day parade and go into early labor accidentally, not intention — you have every intention of going back, and you have a kid, he's an American citizen? That is bananas. That concept.

... ...

... ...

... ...

CROSSLAND: I know I don't want to implicate all Chinese Americans because that's horrific. That's why — I know plenty of Chinese people, Chinese Americans, I don't want them interned if there was some conflict between the Chinese, but how can you tell? How can you tell who's who? How can you tell where their allegiances are? And how do you know if their allegiances will or won't flip if the tide of war starts to change?

SMITH: Well, I don't think you could do that now because I think while they were interning the Japanese, a lot of people probably didn't know what was happening. You know, like, they were like, you can't do stuff like that now — with social media and stuff, there'd be there'd be protests outside of each one of them. And and I'm not saying you should, but I don't think that — I don't think that that's a possibility now. And I'm sure people are going to compare it to ICE detention facilities, though that's not remotely the same thing.

... ...

LABONTE: We've had some some discussions about that, and I think that even entertaining those arguments is a bad — a bad strategy, because if you entertain an argument, you're implicitly saying well, that's a reasonable perspective. You know, I'm going to address this. That's a reasonable thing, so let me explain why you're wrong. That kind of stuff is just I like, out of hand — oh, shut up.

In an aging mahjong manufacturing hub, factories are redesigning tiles, expanding exports, and racing to meet a sudden wave of American demand.

...

“We are looking for a factory that can produce acrylic mahjong tiles.”

Hua Fangyi repeated that pitch at nearly 30 factories in Taixing, a city in eastern China’s Jiangsu province known for manufacturing mahjong tiles. “Almost every factory refused,” she says.

After quitting her job to start an export business last October, Hua, 28, spotted a surge in overseas demand for American mahjong. Believing the opportunity might last only a few months, she planned to test the market with just a few dozen sets.

... Taixing’s factories were built for large runs of traditional Chinese mahjong, not the small batches of brightly colored acrylic tiles overseas buyers wanted. Some produced only conventional melamine sets; others required minimum orders far beyond what Hua could afford.

Then Hua found a factory with 20 American mahjong sets in stock. She bought the entire batch, and it sold out almost immediately.

Within months, she had built a company shipping more than 5,000 sets a month and generating roughly $400,000 in monthly sales. Across Taixing, factories that had once turned away from American mahjong were now chasing the same overseas buyers.

“Almost every factory is now making American mahjong,” Hua says.

The opportunity has also drawn a new generation of entrepreneurs to Taixing: former tech workers, salespeople, and export traders hoping to manufacture the tiles and build brands of their own.

Together, they are all betting on a boom whose limits remain unclear. For now, overseas orders have given Taixing’s mahjong industry fresh momentum, ...

... ...

... ...

The game itself, however, has a long history in the U.S. The governing body for American mahjong, the National Mah Jongg League, was founded in 1937 with 32 members; it now has more than 350,000 members and publishes a new card of official hands and rules each year.

More recently, American brands such as Oh My Mahjong have helped recast mahjong tiles as colorful, premium lifestyle products, while influencers and social clubs have brought the game to younger players seeking in-person connection.

In April 2026, review platform Yelp reported that U.S. searches for mahjong clubs had jumped 4,467% between September 2024 and August 2025, compared with the previous 12 months. Oh My Mahjong’s sets now sell for $350 to $475, with most priced around $400 — versus the roughly 100 yuan ($15) many Chinese sets sell for in China on e-commerce platform Taobao.

... ...

... ...

. A search for “mahjong” on Qichacha, a Chinese corporate database, returns nearly 180 businesses in Taixing, many of them small workshops specializing in a single stage of production.

The cluster grew from a household trade dating to the 1980s, when local families cut and polished tiles by hand from bamboo and ox bone. Over time, production split among specialized workshops handling tile blanks, engraving, polishing, printing, and packaging.

“If one family made money from it, the neighbors would learn too,” says Zhu Ronggen, whose father was among Taixing’s earliest mahjong makers. “One person taught another, and slowly the whole village started making mahjong.”

... ...

... ...

“Chinese mahjong designs have barely changed for decades,” Zhu says. “American mahjong is completely different. A circle tile could be a football or a bunch of grapes. One grape stands for one dot, and nine grapes represent nine dots.”

American sets also include Arabic numerals and joker tiles, while familiar symbols are constantly reworked around seasonal themes and customers’ ideas. Summer collections feature seashells and aquatic plants; Christmas designs use Santa hats and trees.

And while traditional Chinese sets are usually molded from melamine in a narrow range of colors, American buyers prefer acrylic tiles with richer palettes, sometimes built from six or seven colored layers visible along the edge.

...

Chinese players, he says, tend to value weight, legibility, and how the tiles feel in the hand. American buyers, by contrast, want sets distinctive enough to display and expressive enough to reflect their tastes.

...

Inside Zhu’s factory, traditional Chinese mahjong and its American reinvention sit side by side. Dust-covered melamine slabs are stacked near the entrance, while baskets of brightly colored acrylic tiles and export cartons crowd the corridors beyond.

... ...

... ...

“I used to make just 20 sets of American mahjong a year,” he says. “Now, I can turn out 200 sets a day.”

... ...

Unlike traditional Chinese sets, which can be reproduced using fixed molds, each American order requires new adjustments to engraving, printing, and coloring.

... ...

“People buy them the way they buy clothes,” Zhu says. “What’s fashionable this year may be completely different next year.”

To keep up, Zhu has invested another 1 million yuan ($148,000) in laser engravers, UV printers, and other equipment.

... ...

... ...

... ...

This past March, five young entrepreneurs arrived in Taixing to start a mahjong business.

... ...

... the five had experience in sales, technology, and international trade. None had ever made a mahjong tile.

...

operates under the name SenJoy Mahjong. A former Alibaba employee, he saw American mahjong as a chance to sell a higher-value product overseas.

... ...

... ...

... ...

... ...

“For us, building a brand starts with original design,” Li says. “We might become the first company in Taixing — and perhaps one of the first in China — to build a real mahjong brand instead of simply manufacturing for others.”

... ...

Their bestseller uses a coral-reef theme.

... ...

... ...

Today’s buyers, he says, remain a relatively small group with strong spending power. If American mahjong reaches a broader market, more manufacturers will follow, he says, adding: “Price wars are unavoidable.”

... ...

... ...

Hua, one of the first Chinese traders to bet on American mahjong, has watched competitors multiply within months.

... ...

... ...

“The profit margins were much higher in the beginning, but now they have dropped significantly,” she says. “I think this is probably an inevitable stage for any viral product.”

She, too, has started developing designs of her own.

Last month, she began experimenting with AI to create early concepts before working with freelance designers to refine them. Her first ideas included themes inspired by witches, tennis, flowers, and Christmas.

The Commonwealth Seminar's Leverett Wing debuts 'Spilling the Cold Tea' to spotlight community voices

Leverett Wing and podcast co-host and creator Rachel Lee during a taping of a podcast episode.

The series spotlights younger Asian Americans doing good work in the community. The Commonwealth Seminar's executive director says the Northeast lacked content for younger Asian Americans. The podcast aims to fill that niche.

----- ARRICLE #2

JoySauce TV is now on Roku. The point is the living-room remote, not another panel.

https://www.mygoldscene.com/what-to-watch/joysauce-tv-roku-aapi-channel-2026

JoySauce TV, the free American Asian FAST channel from Jonathan Ng Sposato’s JoySauce, has launched on The Roku Channel after Prime Video and Plex, calling itself the first AAPI channel on Roku.

...

The free American Asian channel is live on The Roku Channel, and JoySauce is calling it the first AAPI channel on the platform. The company puts the hardware footprint at more than 100 million households.

...

Jonathan Ng Sposato, the Seattle entrepreneur behind GeekWire and a stack of earlier tech exits, started JoySauce as a web-and-video home for American Asian stories after years of watching AAPI talent stay guest-star shaped on other people’s stages. The language is intentional. He says American Asian on purpose, joy forward, built for AAPI viewers and for anyone who already mainlines Asian pop culture without needing a permission slip.

...

The schedule is a mix of JoySauce originals and acquired Asian and Asian American fare: late-night, standup, docs, cinema blocks, variety, anime, tokusatsu. Whitman College’s spring look at the launch put the library around 500 hours. That is enough to feel like a real channel, thin enough that you still notice when the same blocks rotate.

The house flag is JoySauce Late Night, the all-AAPI talk show Sposato hosts with the house-slipper energy of someone who wants the format without the usual late-night gatekeepers. Team Tan follows race-car driver Samantha Tan through a season that treats Asian Canadian motorsport ambition as the default subject, not a diversity sidebar. Asian Cinema Showcase and Cult Classics keep the movie hours from becoming a single-genre trap.

... etc.

The pair carried out eight assaults on strangers in the one night in the city centre last September 14.

Murphy, 19, and Lawrie, 20, have now admitted their guilt as they appeared in the dock at the High Court in Glasgow.

...

The court heard how four Chinese students had arrived in the city at 7pm.

...

Miss Maguire said: “[One victim] observed Murphy and Lawrie shouting at the group.

... they were shouting ‘c****y’ from across the street.”

The men confronted the students before punching and pushing them.

One victim was repeatedly hit on the head, Murphy headbutted another, also striking a third on the mouth.

The duo then grabbed glass bottles from a nearby bin and started hurling them at the frightened men.

One victim was hit three times by the weapons causing a cut head, blurred vision and bruising to his shoulder. Another was also struck.

Miss Maguire: “Murphy and Lawrie then approached the group shouting ‘f***ing c****s’ amongst other aggressive words.”

One victim was left scarred for life from the head wound, two others had lip injuries. Another escaped being physically hurt.

...

------- ARTICLE #2 ALSO SCOTLAND

Teenage killer boasts about Kayden Moy murder in prison rap video

Jay Stewart, 19, was given a life sentence last week after being found guilty of murdering 16-year-old Kayden Moy

A teenager convicted of murdering 16-year-old Kayden Moy has posted a video online from prison, appearing to boast about the killing.

Jay Stewart, 19, was given a life sentence last week after being found guilty of the murder on a North Ayrshire beach in 2025.

...

Stewart and Cole Turley, 18, were both sentenced to a minimum of 16 years in prison for the murder, while a 15-year-old boy received a minimum 14-year term. Kayden was fatally stabbed on Irvine beach on 17 May.

...

On the day of the attack, the teenagers took a train to Irvine, armed with a lock-back knife and a cosh hidden in clothes and a backpack. Following an initial confrontation, they chased Kayden, fatally stabbing him after he slipped and fell. Afterwards, they were caught on camera appearing to celebrate the killing.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/uk/home-news/jay-stewart-kayden-moy-murder-rap-video-polmont-b3025173.html

first one, Donnie Wong a British twat that calls Asian Americans boba liberals, and defends the colonialist use of "Oriental" to describe Asians.

In hopes of identifying a Gilgo Beach murder victim known only as “Asian Doe,” Suffolk County authorities traveled to Chinatown in Manhattan on Tuesday, Aug. 4....

...

The man’s body was found on Gilgo Beach on April 4, 2011, during the serial killer investigation, but his death was never connected to admitted murderer Rex Heuermann.

Investigators estimate he was 17 to 23 years old when he was killed around 2006. The man may have been operating as a sex worker and was wearing women’s clothing at the time of his death, authorities revealed.

...

When political scientists study how Americans develop their political beliefs, they often begin with the family.

But according to Rice University assistant professor of political science, Tanika Raychaudhuri, that traditional explanation doesn’t tell the whole story for many Asian Americans.

Drawing on in-depth interviews, surveys and years of research, Raychaudhuri’s work argues that many Asian Americans develop political identities through friendships, workplaces and community networks ...

... ...

... ...

... ...

Many long-standing theories emphasize parents as children’s primary political influence. Raychaudhuri found that pattern often differs for first- and second-generation immigrants.

“A lot of Asian Americans who I interviewed in the Houston area didn’t talk about American politics too much when they were growing up and instead learned about politics through social interactions with people outside of the home,” she said.

...

... ...

“As immigrants come to the U.S., they often don’t have too much of a prior understanding of the political system and political culture,” Raychaudhuri said. “The existing frames of politics they are exposed to within local contexts can be really formative.”

The findings also suggest political identities are more dynamic than commonly assumed in diverse Asian American communities. As social networks evolve, so can political preferences.

“We’ve seen long-standing patterns of growing Democratic support in the Asian American community, but also some movement away from Democrats in recent election cycles,” Raychaudhuri said. “The dynamics of political learning are not predetermined in these communities.”

The work arrives as Asian Americans continue to be among the nation’s fastest-growing populations, making a deeper understanding of their political development increasingly important.

... ...

“Their political perspectives are really central to understanding the future of American politics, especially as elections are decided on very thin margins,”

... ...

... ...

... ...

“One big takeaway that civic organizations but also political parties might be able to draw from this research is that they can tap into immigrant peer networks to engage members of these communities in the political system,” she said.

For the ABCs, CBCs, XBCs... How well would you do?

Wong Fu Productions is returning to feature filmmaking with a pointed message about Asian American representation in Hollywood.

“Hollywood treated Asian Americans as a fad the last few years and now they’re giving up on us,” adding that he has been “pushing our community for more than two decades” and is “not going anywhere.”

... ... I’m working on a new feature film and it’s gonna lay the foundation for a whole new approach when it comes to independent Asian American filmmaking,” he says.

... “Asian Americans are actually falling behind in Hollywood and have lost much of the momentum that we gained after the groundbreaking wave Crazy Rich Asians created in 2018,” he says. “This isn’t hyperbole. These are just facts and it’s time someone stood up and stood firm for our community.”

A lower-budget model

... ... He says the film will be made for $500,000, a figure he presents as a deliberate alternative to the high-budget studio system. “While everyone is seeking millions of dollars for budgets that are unrealistic to recoup, I’m going to be making this first film for $500,000,” he says.

... I just want to create movies that are made by us, centered on us for all to enjoy and that actually make their money back. It’s really that simple.”

... ...

What “Sung” is about

Wang describes Sung as a romantic dramedy about a singer from Los Angeles who was kicked out of a K-pop training program in Korea and returns home “jaded and lost.” The story shifts when he meets a talented girl at a karaoke bar, with the two characters’ ambitions and pasts colliding. “It’s a romantic dramedy and of course there’s going to be some amazing songs in it,” he says.

... ...

Open casting and next steps

Wang says the production is planning to shoot later this year and is now opening casting to the public. “I wanted to reach out to our community first to see who wants to be involved in this film,” he says.

He also invites people who are not actors to contribute in other ways, including “locations, music, sponsorships, or even investment.” He frames the project as the beginning of something bigger, saying, “This is just the first of what will hopefully be more films as I try to build our own Asian American A24/Tyler Perry Studios.”

Why it matters

Beyond the film itself, Wang ties the project to a larger mission. “Everything I’ve done at Wong Fu over the past 20 years has led me to this next chapter,” he says. “There’s still so much work to be done to achieve real meaningful and lasting Asian American representation.”

That is the core of his message: not just a new movie, but a new model. Wang’s pitch is part comeback story, part challenge to Hollywood, and part call to action for the community he says he has spent decades serving.

A repeat offender has been arrested in two unprovoked attacks on Asian women in Uptown Oakland, CA, ...

Police say Yahya Muslim, 33, is homeless and attacked the women Sunday has a history of severe mental illness and substance abuse.

He is the same man arrested in 2021 for an attack on a 91-year-old Asian man and a 55-year-old woman that same day. Surveillance video shows the 91 year old being shoved into the hard concrete sidewalk from behind as he walked up the street.

In the latest attack, one woman was punched in the head and the other pushed to the ground.

“It’s very uncomforting and also concerning,” said Oakland Chinatown business leader Carl Chan. “When people are claiming their mental health issue, it’s basically becoming license to kill.”

Muslim served his time for the 2021 crime and was released. Attorney Michael Cardoza says the mental health issue was not properly addressed.

“Warehousing him will protect society for whatever time you put him in county jail or state prison, but it doesn’t take care of the problem.”

... In the first in our series, Phoebe Zhang looks at how Chinese students are preparing for life – and safety – in America. The second instalment in our series is here.

Beijing student Lulu Lu was just preparing for bed when she was startled by loud banging at her door.

When she opened the door, a man pushed his way inside, shone a flashlight in her face and shouted: “Get down. Give me your phone.”

Lu froze.

Moments later, she came to her senses and did as she was told, burying her face in the mattress and raising her hands above her head.

The intruder blindfolded Lu, tied her hands and finally made her record a phone message for her parents – begging them to pay a ransom.

Except the scenario was not real.

It was just an instructor at a private summer camp, training Lu how to handle a kidnapping in case it happened for real when she started school in the US in two months.

After the drill was over, the coaches sat down with Lu to review what she did right.

Key points they reminded her of included getting down on the floor, figuring out what the kidnappers wanted and not aggravating them.

“I hope I never have to use any of this, but I definitely feel more alert after learning it,” said Lu, who starts college in Washington state in September.

These courses are the latest way Chinese students are getting ready for the perceived risks of studying in the United States, driven in part by the Donald Trump administration’s increasingly hostile policies towards international students and the fluctuating Sino-US relationship.

... ...

Lu went to an exclusive international high school in Beijing, where instead of preparing for the gruelling national college-entrance exam, students mostly chose to study abroad or in Hong Kong.

She eventually decided to head to the US because it offered a freer educational environment, as she could pick any major she wanted and explore extracurricular activities, she said.

But when her mother found out about summer camps that prepared students for studying in the US, she did not hesitate to sign up her enthusiastic daughter.

... ...

A social media advertisement for the Beijing camp – which provided the kidnapping drill – said the security training was based on risk evaluation reports from 110 US campuses.

The course puts students in scenarios simulating hate crimes, phone and internet scams, bullying, and the latest addition – how to cope with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] raids.

“This training simulates ICE enforcement tactics and procedures, preparing participants to respond calmly and effectively to sudden raids in various everyday settings – including their homes, schools and public spaces,” the post read.

... ...

... ...

... ...

A mother living in southern China’s Guangdong province, ... said her family had invested too much in their son’s education to change course now.

The family had always planned to send their child to the US for higher education. In light of the worsening atmosphere, they had toned down their expectations ... ...

“But if it’s hard to stay in the US after graduation, maybe we’ll decide to work in Hong Kong then,” the mother said.

This trend has been observed by Yingyi Ma, a professor at Syracuse University and author of Ambitious and Anxious: How Chinese Undergraduates Succeed and Struggle in American Higher Education. She believes policy shifts under Trump have affected these families’ long-term confidence. They are now more concerned with whether the visa policy is stable and the availability of post-graduation opportunities.

“We have seen some signals, such as a stronger willingness among some Chinese students to return to China, and an overall decline in the number of Chinese students going to the US,” she said.

According to the Open Doors Report, an annual US-based survey on international students and scholars published by the Institute of International Education, the number of Chinese students in the US has been dropping for five consecutive years, to just below 266,000 in 2025.

Reports by Chinese private educational services provider New Oriental found that the United Kingdom replaced the US as the most desired destination for studying abroad in 2019.

But some students say that the quality of academic programmes still comes first. Steve Liu, a master’s student in finance, said the US had a considerable edge in his field.

... ...

He said that US films gave him the impression that the country was “open and tolerant” and he wanted to experience protests or a strike if possible.

As for the potential risks others worry about – visa issues, ICE raids or mass shootings – Liu said he would deal with these problems as they happened.

Regardless, he hopes he might be able to avoid them.

“I’ll be in California, there are more Democrats there,” he said.

Additional reporting by Caroline Lin

Last year, the OED published an entry for bing sutt, a type of café that can be found around Hong Kong, ... Hong Kong’s bing sutts serve a variety of inexpensive food and drink items, some of which have now also been added to the dictionary.

Yin yeung (first attested 1997) is a drink consisting of a mixture of tea, brewed coffee, sugar, and milk, which can be served hot or cold. In Cantonese, yīnyeūng or yūnyeūng literally means ‘a pair of Mandarin ducks’, and is frequently used to denote joined pairs, including in the names of dishes created by combining particular ingredients in a new way. Mandarin ducks are often observed in pairs and are believed to mate for life, and the male and female have markedly different plumage; they are therefore regarded in East Asian culture as symbolic of love and marriage and the successful pairing of two outwardly different things.

A couple of popular Hong Kong pastries have also made it into the OED: a dan tat (1983) is an open tart with a pastry crust and an egg custard filling, while a pineapple bun (1894) is a sweet bun topped with a crust made of sugar, butter, and flour. Cantonese daahn-tāat combines daahn ‘egg’ with tāat ‘pastry tart’, itself borrowed from the English tart, another example of a boomerang word that has travelled from English to another language and back to English. Pineapple bun, with its two English elements, may seem to be an even more transparent compound, but it is not. Despite its name, this bun does not contain any pineapple but is so named because of the appearance of its topping; when baked, it produces a cracked texture resembling the skin of a pineapple.

Another Hong Kong dish with a potentially misleading name is Singapore noodles (1966), a dish of thin rice noodles stir-fried with meat (typically char siu pork), prawns, vegetables, scrambled eggs, and curry powder. This dish originated in Cantonese restaurants in Hong Kong and has no connection to Singapore; it is perhaps so called on account of the flavour of curry powder being associated with Southeast Asian cuisine.

Going to a bing sutt at peak hours can mean having to deal with people mountain people sea (1984): a very large or dense crowd. This phrase is a loan translation of the Cantonese idiomatic expression yàhn-sāan yàhn-hói and its Mandarin equivalent rénshān-rénhǎi, literally meaning ‘mountain of people, sea of people’. A mountain of people can also lead to a sea of rubbish, or lap sap (1979) in Hong Kong English. Just like rubbish or trash, although lap sap generally refers to actual waste or debris, it is also used figuratively to mean anything nonsensical.

----

A few other Cantonese words that the Oxford dict had previously acknowledged

dai pai dong, yum cha, wonton, chop suey, hoisin sauce, egg foo yung, moo goo gai pan, dim sum, siu mei