31st Hawaii International Film Festival
Various Venues across Honolulu, HI
13 – 23 October 2011

Established in 1981, Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF) is dedicated to the advancement of understanding and cultural exchange among the peoples of Asia, the Pacific and North America through the medium of film. The Center for Southeast Asian Studies is proud to sponsor the following films at the 31st HIFF:

THE GAME KISS
Part of SHORTS PROGRAM #2
Dir. Paul Agusta
Indonesia 2011
9:15 PM | Saturday, October 15 | Dole Cannery E

BUSONG
Dir. Auraeus Solito 2011
Philippines 2011
8:00 PM | Monday, October 17 | Dole Cannery F
1:00 PM | Tuesday, October 18 | Dole Cannery B

LIVING IN SEDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES
Dir. Ian Gamazon 2011
United States/Vietnam 2011
8:45 PM | Tuesday, October 18 | Dole Cannery C

THE DANCE OF TWO LEFT FEET (ANG SAYAW NG DALAWANG KALIWANG PAA)
Dir. Alvin Yapan
Philippines 2011
6:00 PM | Saturday, October 15 | Dole Cannery D
4:30 PM | Monday, October 17 | Dole Cannery E

RAKENROL
Dir. Quark Henares
Philippines 2011
6:15 PM | Saturday, October 15 | Dole Cannery E

STAR-CROSSED LOVE
Dir. Erick Salud
Philippines 2011
9:30 PM | Friday, October 21 | Dole Cannery E
8:15 PM | Sunday, October 23 | Dole Cannery E

THELMA
Dir. Paul Soriano
Philippines 2011
2:45 PM | Saturday, October 15 | Dole Cannery B

THE WOMAN IN THE SEPTIC TANK
(ANG BABAE SA SEPTIC TANK )
Dir. Marlon Rivera
Philippines 2011
5:00 PM | Thursday, October 20 | Dole Cannery E

BREAKFAST LUNCH DINNER
Dir. Kaz Cai, Wang Jing, Anocha Suwichakornpong
Singapore 2011
3:30 PM | Wednesday, October 19 | Dole Cannery C
11:30 AM | Saturday, October 22 | Dole Cannery A

ETERNITY
Dir. Sivaroj Kongsakul
Thailand 2010
1:00 PM | Sunday, October 16 | Dole Cannery C
3:30 PM | Tuesday, October 18 | Dole Cannery F

SAIGON ELECTRIC
Dir. Stephane Gauger
United States, Viet Nam 2011
4:30 PM | Saturday, October 22 | Dole Cannery A

30 Mosques in 30 Days: Tales from a Ramadan Roadtrip
Center for Korean Studies Auditorium
1881 East West Road
University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa
Honolulu, HI
2:00pm, 5 August 2011

In conjunction with Ramadan celebration, the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Muslim Societies in Asia and the Pacific, School of the Pacific and Asian Studies and the University of Hawaiʻi’s Multicultural Student Services (OMSS/UHM) is sponsoring storytelling with Aman Ali.

CNN ranked it as one of the top stories of 2010. During Ramadan 2010, Islam’s holy month of fasting and reflection, New Yorkers Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq took a roadtrip across America, stopping each evening to break their fasts at a different mosque in a different state. The two drove over 13,000 miles during the trip and blogged about it daily on their site, http://30mosques.com/. During the trip they prayed inside the infamous “Ground Zero Mosque” in Manhattan, got pulled over by a cop in Mississippi, and visited the first mosque ever built in the U.S. in Ross, North Dakota – a town with only 48 people in it. Along the way they met the protagonists of Dave Eggers’ bestselling Zeitoun, Cambodian Muslim victims of the Khmer Rouge, a Pakistani-Mormon couple, and many, many others, all of whom are part of the diverse Muslim-American community. Their journey explores what it means to be Muslim in America today, and serves as a powerful counter-narrative to the media’s image of a monolithic Islam, receiving coverage on ABC News, CNN, Time, NPR, Fox News, the Huffington Post and Aljazeera English.

Speaker Bio:
Aman Ali is a writer and standup comedian. He lives and works in New York. He and his friend filmmaker and advertising copywriter Bassam Tariq are co-creators of the 30 Mosques in 30 States project.

Co-sponsored by:
Shangri La, Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, Muslim Societies in Asia and the Pacific, School of the Pacific and Asian Studies and University of Hawai’i's Office of Multicultural Student Services (OMSS/UHM). Support for this event is made possible in part with funding from the State of Hawai’i Legislature and the U.S. Department of Education.

For further information or disability accommodations, contact MSAP at (808) 956-6316 or email to msap@hawaii.edu. Advance notice requested. An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institution.

31 Artists and Designers Featured in NYC Thai Arts Showcase
Thai Artists Alliance
The Invisible Dog Arts Center
Location: Brooklyn, NY USA
28 July – 31 July 2011

Siamese Connection 2011

Presented by Dr. Muhamad Ali
Shangri La, Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art
1:30pm – 3:30pm, 2 July 2011

Lecture: So that You May Know One Another: Islam and Pluralism

“Global Sounds/Asian and Pacific Bodies: the International Circulation of Music”
by Dr. Ricardo D. Trimillos, UHM School for Pacific & Asian Studies

7:00 pm, 15 June 2011
Architecture Auditorium
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

There are a number of different kinds of music that we can consider “global,” that is, a music genre heard in many parts of the world. Pop or commercial music is a type that most often comes to mind when we think of a global reach today. This lecture aims to look at a number of issues related to music and to our musical experiences in Hawaiʻi—what constitutes a global music? How did it become defined as global? And also, how has Hawaiʻi as part of an Asia-Pacific region contributed to or participated in various kinds of global music?

Although global music today are almost always assumed to be sounds distributed through mass media, the circulation of musicians or “live bodies” through touring is an earlier form of globalization that continues to be important today. In this presentation, I discuss the ways the performer as a physical body affects both the actual sound of the performance but also the way in which a performance is received by an audience or by observers. In recent years academics have turned with a renewed interest to the body, particularly the physical body. Two ideas about the body will form the basis of our considerations: the body as a canvas whose physical appearance can be changed or given different meanings; and the body as a machine that does work that can be changed or given different meanings. These two ideas are manifested in globalized music in interesting ways.
The world of classical music with its non-stop travelling of world-class artists is one instance. For example, within two months an artist such as Yo-yo Ma can perform the same concerto in Chicago’s Symphony Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, and Honolulu’s Blaisdell Concert Hall. We will consider the ways in which Asian and Pacific “bodies” are part of the opera world.

As a second category, there are many worlds of pop music, whose origins are certainly in the West but whose production is now world-wide. A question we might ask is: if pop music is created in Hong Kong or in Manila is it still a westernized music? Or is it Cantonese or Filipino, respectively? How does the Asian or Pacific body help to “sell” a global sound, especially one that is commercial?

The notion of the physical body in performance has implications for gender and ethnicity as well as for sexuality and race. We will touch upon the ways in which these aspects are part of musical globalization and also ways in which globalization can impact local cultures, both positively and negatively. The presentation is intended for a general audience. Informal and informative, it includes sound and visual illustrations, many of which are familiar to the Honolulu music scene.

Ricardo D. Trimillos is an ethnomusicologist at the University of Hawai‘i and Director of the Center for Philippine Studies. He has served as cultural consultant for the governments of Malaysia, the Philippines, the former Soviet Union, and Hong Kong. His area interests include the musics of Hawai‘i, the Southern Philippines and Japan. Thematic interests include identity, gender, and cultural advocacy. Trimillos has been a consultant to a number of governments in the area of arts and public policy. He has served as a liaison, bringing indigenous Filipino musicians to national folk festivals in the United States. His publications in three languages include articles on Asian Americans, world music in higher education, cross-cultural implications for the arts, interrelationships of the arts, Philippine ritual and Hawaiian music. As a performer whose principal medium is the Japanese koto, Trimillos has presented concerts of modern and traditional music in the US, Europe, Japan, the Philippines and Australia.

The CSEAS staff invites all students, faculty, and staff to our upcoming fall semester reception on Monday, September 20 from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm in the Tokioka Room (Moore Hall 319).

Come join us welcome in the fall semester Southeast Asian style!

Presented by Governor Linda Lingle and the Hawaii-Indonesia Chamber of Commerce
Opening Remarks by Governor Linda Lingle
8 – 10am at Thursday, 1 July 2010 at the Hawaii State Capitol Rm, Honolulu, HI, USA

No one knows Indonesia better than James Castle. He is the founder of CastleAsia. a business consultancy specializing in market entry strategies, economic and political analysis and public policy advocacy, in association with PT Jasa Cita. In over thirty years of work in Southeast Asia, Mr. Castle has advised in the establishment of numerous foreign direct investment projects. He has acted as a consultant to many of the world’s largest corporations as well as many of Indonesia’s largest business groups. Mr. Castle has also been consultant to numerous projects for governments and international agencies including the World Bank, IFC, ADB, USAID and the Indonesian government.

Pleaes RSVP to amin.leiman@gmail.com. For further clarification, call Amin Leiman, President of the Hawaii-Indonesia Chabmer of Commerce at +1 808 225 4554.

Center for Chinese Studies Research Seminar
Tuesday, April 20 at 3:00pm in Moore Hall 319 (Tokioka Room)
Presented by Dr. Shana J. Brown, Assistant Professor – Department of History

This workshop is designed for graduate students applying for grants and fellowships in the humanities and social sciences, including dissertation-level awards. What international, national, and UH funding sources are available, and what proposals are most effective? Asian Studies fellowships will be featured, but the workshop will help any students looking to improve their grant-writing skills.

Dr. Shana J. Brown is an assistant professor in the Department of History, focusing on modern China.

Seminars are free and open to the public.

For more information, visit our website, or contact Daniel Tschudi, 956-8891, e-mail: china@hawaii.edu.

Excerpt from Honolulu Advertiser article, “Welcoming the new year: Vietnamese Tet traditions range from eating special foods to paying off debt”
Tuesday, 9 February 2010

As Phuong Thi Vo danced, her draping costume of pretty pastels wafted with every graceful gesture she made.

Vo and other members of Tan Huong Sen, a Vietnamese dance club, were in the middle of rehearsing for last Sunday’s Vietnamese New Year Festival at Kapi’olani Park.

The actual lunar new year holiday falls on Sunday and is celebrated with traditions that families strive to perpetuate among Vietnamese youth.

“It’s just a really good thing to pass (these traditions) on to your child to know their culture,” said Vo, 16, of Lanakila.

Properly called “Tet Nguyen Dan” — or the “Festival of the First Dawning (of the New Year)” — the holiday is commonly called Tet, said Stephen O’Harrow, professor of Vietnamese at the University of Hawai’i-Mānoa.

“For the Vietnamese, the lunar new year … is both a time to relax and enjoy oneself, as well as a marker of new beginnings,” said O’Harrow, who’s also the chairman of UH’s Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures.

Starting off the new year “correctly” can set in motion good luck for the rest of the year, O’Harrow said.

“For this reason, many people believe it is imperative to get important things done before the beginning of the year: They pay off outstanding debts, clean the house and take care of burdens now, so that these burdens do not continue into the future,” he said. “It is also a time to remember their forebears with prayers, incense and offerings of delicious food, including fruit and sweets.”

O’Harrow’s wife is Vietnamese, and they have three children, ages 41, 35 and 16. O’Harrow said as his children grew up, they always took part in Tet celebrations at home: performing ceremonies at their family altar to honor deceased family members, cleaning their house and eating special foods. Typical holiday fare includes mut, which are sweet treats made from fruit.

They would also attend Tet parties organized among Vietnamese students and teachers within the UH community.

“Tet has always been an important part of our family,” O’Harrow said.

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