Here and There

by Andrea Rademan


Near Little Tokyo, the Old Bank District contains several imposing old bank buildings that are fast being converted to lofts. While a new tapas restaurant and an Indian eatery are being built, locals flock to Pete’s Cafe and Bar, Bar 107, Banquette bistro, Rocket Pizza, and WARUNG (118 W. Fourth St., between Spring and Main; 213-626-0662; warungcafela.com), an old Indonesian dive that has been transformed into an Asian tapas restaurant with good looks, good food, and an accommodating wait staff who won’t be happy unless you are. At least that’s the impression we got when we stopped by, drawn by memories of Warung restaurant in Bali, but nearly missed the inconspicuous entrance. It’s easier to spot during area art strolls and weekend nights when neighbors and visitors converge on the sidewalks. The décor is low key — a shoe box of dark wood, polished concrete, a brick wall, and leather seating bathed in flickering candlelight. Every table is served a bowl of warm edamame to assuage hunger pains while you look over the pan-Asian small plates menu that advises: “Order at least two plates. Or soup and two plates. Or three.”

We ignored the suggestion in lieu of sampling whatever looked good, the best of which was a warm bowl of rich mushroom miso soup dotted with tofu and green onions; earthy and unctuous stir-fried shitake, enoki and chanterelle mushrooms bathed in garlic and butter soy sauce and served with slices of toasted char siu buns; and broiled wild salmon saikyo style with edamame rice, kind of an Asian rice ‘n’ beans. Seafood Asian ceviche is tuna, shrimp and scallop served in a pretty lotus flower-shaped pastry shell. They slide down easy with one of ten Asian (four Japanese) beers, or sake and soju cocktails. Did we try the wok-fried Mongolian beef with Jasmine rice, the cold ramen tossed with peanut dressing, or the papaya and tofu salad? No, because we wanted to follow the rest of the menu directions: Just order. And wait. Eat edamame while you wait. Have drinks. Talk and look around at space. Listen to ambient Asian grooves. Enjoy great food. Go home. Repeat.” Open weekdays for lunch and dinner, and Saturday for dinner. Street parking or pay lot at Fourth and Main.

When Linda Bladholm picked 2007’s Five Best Bites for her column in the Miami Herald, she cited HIRO’S YAKKO-SAN JAPANESE in North Miami Beach (305-947-0064) for their deep-fried Japanese eggplant in tempura broth (age nasu). Her dining companion, TV’s Anthony Bourdain, called it “a gentle whiff of the Tsukiji fish market,” the worlds largest fish market. After hour sushi chefs come to Hiro’s for no-nonsense small plates like raw coldwater sea urchin and beef tongue steak, served izakaya-style.

February 1 at 7:30 PM NAUSICAA, VALLEY OF THE WIND (KAZE NO TANI NO NAUSHIKA), (1984, Walt Disney); February 2 at 4:00 PM MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (SEN TO CHIHIRO NO KAMIKAKUSHI), 2002, Walt Disney/Studio Ghibli). The great director and animator HAYAO MIYAZAKI (SPIRITED AWAY, PRINCESS MONONOKE, LAPUTA: CASTLE IN THE SKY, KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE), was born in Tokyo, the son of an airplane manufacturer (Miyazaki’s love for planes and flying shows in almost all his films). He grew up influenced by writers such as Antoine de Saint-Exupery and Rosemary Sutcliff, and the manga comics of Osamu Tezuka (Astro-Boy). American Cinematheque at the Aero (1328 Montana Ave, Santa Monica). Tickets: www.fandango.com.

February 2 through March 9 THE MONKEY JAR. When an Asian-American ten-year-old brings a gun to class in his upscale, predominantly white California school and allegedly uses it to threaten his Japanese fourth grade teacher a firestorm of race and sexual preference is complicated by the community’s desire to maintain the school’s pristine reputation. The American-born cast includes veteran actor Henry Hayashi, whose numerous credits include Boston Legal, Star Trek-D89 and the East-West Players; Sekai Murashige and Josh Ogner, who rotate in the role of the student. Sekai co-starred on Heroes, has worked with David Spade and in films. Josh Ogner has appeared on stage, in General Hospital, and in feature films. Both are busy commercial actors. Plays in Repertory with ANOTHER VERMEER, based on the true story of a charming sociopath, an artist/art dealer who is arrested for selling an original Vermeer to Naxi Reich Marshal Hermann Goering. He must prove he forged it or face the death penalty. THEATRE 40, a professional theatre company at Beverly Hills High School, 241 Moreno Drive (adjacent to Century City) FREE parking. Info: 310-364-0535.

There’s time to catch the tail end of KOREAN CINEMA NOW (AND THEN) at the Billy Wilder Theater (Hammer Museum) INFO: www.cinema.ucla.edu or 310-206-FILM, presented by UCLA Film & Television Archive and the J. Paul Getty Museum in association with the Korean Film Council (KOFIC). February 3 IF YOU WERE ME 2: Five shorts by five prominent directors, second in a series of films tackling discrimination in Korea, and OUR SCHOOL: Documentary about a North Korea-affiliated school in Hokkaido, Japan — the communist Chongryon still operates schools, banks, social clubs, and pachinko parlors across Japan; February 9 THE FORBIDDEN QUEST: Director Kim Dae-woo captures the contradictions of the 18th century Chosun Dynasty, when bawdy material flourished under harsh Confucian repression.

February 8 - May 11 (Curator’s Tour February 16. Lecture March 29.) LOTUS MOON: THE ART OF OTAGAKI RENGETSU at the Pacific Asia Museum, 46 N. Los Robles Ave, Pasadena; 626-449-2742. Otagaki Rengetsu, who was probably the illegitimate child of a courtesan and a nobleman, was born in 1791 and adopted by the samurai Otagaki Teruhisa and his wife. They named her Nobu and sent her to Kameoka Castle in present-day Kyoto Prefecture to serve as a lady-in-waiting. She married twice and bore three children, all of whom died. At the age of 33, she vowed to never marry again and joined her father, a Buddhist priest, at the Chion’in temple, where she became a nun and took the name Rengetsu, meaning “Lotus Moon.” When her father died she moved to the countryside and supported herself by making pottery, primarily tea utensils, sake bottles and cups inscribed with original poems in her own delicate calligraphy, which made her famous. One evening a robber attempted to burglarize her house and she made him tea. Soon after, he died and she gave him a proper funeral. Ironically, what had killed him was the tea she had served him, which had been meant for her. Her acts of kindness, making shoes for children who had none, donating all her earnings to her village, and providing gates for the local temple, continued until her death in 1875. Today her work is prized by collectors worldwide.

February 21 at 7:30 PM: THE SAMURAI I LOVED (Semishigure). Mitsuo Kurotsuchi adapts Fujisawa’s saga of teenage samurai, Bunshiro (Somegoro Ichikawa), whose father (Ken Ogata) is embroiled in a political conspiracy that results in his forced ritual suicide. Banished from their home, Bunshiro and his mother end up in a hovel. Several years later, their fortunes take a happy turn until Bunshiro discovers that his childhood sweetheart, Fuku (Yoshino Kimura), has become his benefactor’s concubine. Discussion with director Mitsuo Kurotsuchi follows. Egyptian Theater, 6712 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood.

In exploring her Chinese identity, Iris Chang wrote THE RAPE OF NANKING, which deals with a dark chapter in history that took place in the early days of World War II and has been largely ignored in the West. This is, in part, according to Samuel Yamashita, of Pomona College, because in postwar Japan the U.S. needed Japanese help to counterbalance the growing threat of Chinese communism. At any rate, a massacre occurred during Japan’s occupation of the Republic of China’s capital, which Chang tells from the perspectives of the Japanese soldiers, the Chinese civilians, and the European and American expats who were there. Ted Leonsis, inspired by Chang’s book, made NANKING, which was written and directed by the Academy-Award-winning team of Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman (“Twin Towers”). It focuses on a few unarmed Westerners, including an American surgeon, a college headmistress and a Nazi businessman, who established a Safety Zone for over 200,000 Chinese. The story is told through interviews with Chinese survivors, archival footage, and chilling testimonies of Japanese soldiers, interwoven with staged readings of the Westerners’ letters and diaries as performed by Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway, Jurgen Prochnow, and Stephen Dorff, among others. The Asian cast includes Rosalind Chao (Keiko in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”); Michelle Krusiec, whose numerous credits include, “Made in Taiwan,” which she is developing as a TV pilot; Sonny Saito (Letters from Iwo Jima, Big Dream in Little Tokyo); and film and TV veteran, Robert Wu. Their story shows that the actions of ordinary individuals in extraordinary circumstances can make a difference.

Bob Tadashi Wakabayashi, of York University, calls THE MAKING OF “THE RAPE OF NANKING”: History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States by Takashi Yoshida, a “most comprehensive and judicious survey of how Japanese, Chinese, and American journalists, scholars, and propagandists have interpreted and polemically exploited this tragic atrocity from its occurrence in 1937 to the present day…” One of many films in the works on this topic is The Truth About Nanking, by director Satoru Mizushima, who asserts that the massacre is a myth and intends to prove it with his film.

Aftermath: The two countries did not resume diplomatic relations until 1972. Recently, the Japan-China Joint History Research Committee was formed, headed by Shinichi Kitaoka, of the University of Tokyo, and Bu Ping, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Their mission is to hammer out a common version of the Sino-Japanese conflict by June 2008. President Hu Jintao plans to visit Japan and Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda is expected to visit China.

A war in a foreign land was tearing people apart. The President’s approval rating was at an all-time low. The country was divided. Today? No. In CHICAGO 10, writer/director Brett Morgen, mixing animation with archival footage, revisits the 1968 Democratic Convention, when protestors and police clashed during a week of riots, caught by the TV cameras and broadcast to over 50 million viewers. Eight of the most vocal activists, from Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin to pacifist David Dellinger, were put on trial, defended by Leonard Weinglass and William Kunstler. When Bobby Seale, Black Panther party co-chair, insisted on defending himself, he was bound, gagged and handcuffed to his chair by the repugnant Judge Julius Hoffman in what became known as the Chicago Conspiracy Trial. Young Americans faced an oppressive government, and won.

Musician and activist, U2’s Bono, is combining his love for music with his wife, Ali Hewson’s, work toward sustained development in Africa. In 1990, Hard Rock International developed the concept of partnering with world-renowned musicians and bands, who create and donate imaginative designs to be reproduced onto T-shirts to benefit the artist’s charity of choice.  Bono is the 25th artist in Hard Rock’s Signature Series, and joins music icons Sting, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, Ozzy Osbourne and Shakira, helping to raise millions of dollars for charitable causes, such as Crossroads Centre Antigua, World Hunger Year, Amnesty International and more. 
The Bono series is printed on an Edun Live T Shirt, an ethical company, created by Bono and his wife Ali Hewson, made from 100% African black or white cotton. Online at www.hardrock.com/rockshop and at Hard Rock Cafes, Hotels and Casinos worldwide. 




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