Roar! Leaping into Spring with the exciting 078 Kobe Festival, which took place in 27 – 29 March; an event connecting people, trade and culture with different activities centered around music, film, food, fashion, kids, and anime. I was exhausted from jumping around the 6 venues to take photos with my fans and hand out my nice recycle bags. It was also my honour to sing and dance along on stage with local Kobe artists. Cheers to my DotAsia and NetMission team for the great helping hand!
Another interesting note of this journey was how it reminds me about my extinct Caspian tiger friends’ traces. Check out our booth in the KIITO building. KIITO isn’t another acronym from ICANN, but actually a Japanese word meaning “silk”. KIITO, the Design and Creative Center of Kobe was once a “raw silk” testing center for quality control, nestled in this little port city in Kansai. Bingo! That’s the silk road that my Caspian tiger friends migrated through in ancient times from central Asia to the Russian far east where the Siberian tigers now live. How amazing that people (even animals =P) of the past connected, trading in business and exchanging culture through such a long journey!
Thanks to the Internet forming a new digital silk road, such mobility is not as time-consuming as it used to be. Knowing that there is still a large part of the unreached next billion market, the openness and freedom to move around in this vast network will remain essential to enhance the competitiveness in Asia.
#KobeIsAsia #RiseWithAsia #YouthMobility
This.Is.Asia Newsletter Issues
AAPI Heritage Month: Interview with Mou Mukherjee
In some ways, I abandoned my culture when I was young because I was trying so hard to fit in. My parents were, and still is very cultural. Growing up, there was always Indian music playing, our house was full of Bengali literature, my Dad’s hero was poet Rabindranath Tagore, and he also loved the films of Satyajit Ray. I was surrounded by culture and yet I couldn’t fully embrace it at the time.
AAPI Heritage Month: Interview with Zhou Fang
I am an immigrant from Guilin, China. In 2010, I moved to the U.S. for grad school. After graduating from Kansas State University (Go Cats!) I moved to Oregon and have been living in Portland for the last 9 years.
Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋节快乐
中秋节与春节丶清明节丶端午节并称为中国四大传统节日。受中华文化的影响，中秋节也是东亚和东南亚一些国家尤其是当地的华人华侨的传统节日。 中秋节，农历八月十五，又称仲秋节丶拜月节丶女儿节或团圆节，是中国的传统文化节日，因其恰值三秋之半，故名中秋。中秋节始於唐朝初年，盛行於宋朝，至明清时，已成为与春节齐名的中国主要节日之一。 2006年5月20日，中国国务院在中央政府门户网上发出通知，批准文化部确定并公布中秋节例在第一批国家级非物质文化遗产名录。自2008年起中秋节被列为国家法定节假日。...
How I See It – Privacy Controversy: Trigger of largest digital migration in history
Technology giants, or Big Tech as they are called, have become intertwined extensively with our everyday lives. Early in 2021, Facebook decided to take a step ahead in monetising Whatsapp. This was to be enabled by the changes in the terms outlined in its updated privacy policy. One fine day, users woke up to the notification for the proposed changes in its Privacy Policy. This paved the way to an international conversation about privacy, and also triggered widespread adoption of alternatives to Whatsapp such as Signal and Telegram.