Hong Kong and China tensions: one country, two solitudes
Originally published March 19, 2012 in The Vancouver Observer On January 27, 2012, The Diplomat published an article about a televised rant by Kong Qingdong, a Peking University professor of literature, against Hong Kong. Kong Qingdon, who declared Mandarin-speaking Hong Kongers (predominantly Cantonese-speaking) “running dogs” (a derogatory term used by all sides of the class warfare raging in … Read more
Implosion or explosion? What’s next for the “new” regime in North Korea?
Originally published January 6, 2012 on The Vancouver Observer What’s next for North Korea, after the death of Kim Jong-il? One of the biggest stories of 2011 was the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il on December 17, followed by the appointment of youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as his successor at a meeting of … Read more
Richmond First municipal party’s email blunder: Cat bit our tongue
First published on Vancouver Observer, November 12, 2011 By Colin Chau Richmondites may be wondering whether there truly is a spirit of cooperation in Richmond municipal politics. Some believe that a recent blunder by one of three contending municipal candidate blocks have made a desperate attempt to stave off isolation from some of its supporters. … Read more
Rethinking International Affairs – A Call for a Multidisciplinary Approach to Living and to Seeing the World
See the more up-to-date version in Vancouver Observer By Colin Chau and Songül Arslan 2012 is bound to be an exciting, yet uncertain year ahead. With leadership changes to be held in many countries, including the U.S.A. and China, and the prospect of heightened tensions and conflict with the rise of terrorist franchises in South … Read more
Developmentalism and Democracy in the Republic of Korea – Are they compatible?
With the many perceived revelations of the Asian Financial Crisis that seek to identify the institutional and international causes of its effects on South Korea, the numbness of the experience has had many around the world perplexed about how an economic ‘miracle’ led by a developmental state could so suddenly unravel in the face of … Read more
Korean – Should it be a World Language?
During one of my Korean language classes at UBC, the head of the UBC Asian Studies Department, Dr. Ross King (papers) [Ph.D. (Harvard, 1991) Linguistics, M.A. (Harvard, 1986) Linguistics, B.A. (Yale, 1983) Linguistics (Japanese-Korean) and Political Science], came into our class, blazing away at our 선셍님 in Korean and then turning around to address the class in … Read more
Cowardice & Conniptions: Reflections on Diversity Dialogue Conference
See it in the Richmond Review See the somewhat redacted version in the Richmond News Today, I attended the Diversity Dialogue Conference held at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, hosted by Richmond Multicultural Community Services (formerly Richmond Multicultural Concerns Society). The theme was engaging youth in diversity dialogue. When I posed the question of why we even have – … Read more
Human Rights and the Crisis of National Security – just how much are we giving up?
This letter is a follow-up to my previous letter titled, “Canadian bigotry disturbing” in the October 6 issue of Richmond News. The survival of human rights appears to be waning and is least obvious in national security which lately has meant counter-terrorism. Danger and fear are replacing dignity and hope. Why is this? There were terrorist groups … Read more
PM Harper and the Death Penalty
See it in the Richmond Review See the response by Esther McIlveen, titled What it Means to be Human, a thoughtful, humanistic, and highly redeeming appeal to hope. Esther McIlveen has written a very thoughtful and humanistic response that is highly redeeming, also in Richmond Review, titled What it Means to be Human. PM Harper … Read more
The Circular Maintenance of the Subjugation to Prejudice
We often pigeon-hole people into various subjective analytical categories that they ultimately have little choice in deciding nor changing. Humans are constantly tempted to judge each other while hating being judged by others. Discriminatory profiling as a term removed from all their traditional emotional, hateful, and bigoted roots is a rational while also constructivist method … Read more
