Monthly Archives: May 2019

Former Prime Minister of Ethiopia Hailemariam Desalegn has just received an award for his outstanding contribution towards strengthening the bilateral relations between Ethiopia and Japan. He introduced the Kaizen philosophy to Ethiopia. Kaizen is a business efficiency model, the one Toyota uses.

Read the article: https://www.journalducameroun.com/en/ethiopia-ex-pm-named-for-japanese-gong/

Does America need more Asians? Yes, we do! Ronny Chieng, a Chinese comedian and actor (Crazy Rich Asians) with a law degree from Australia, explained why on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last month. “We are the only objective referees in your ongoing race war between white and black people. Because you don’t care about us and we don’t care about any of you. No. no. So you can trust us….There’s no agenda. There’s no reason to lie because we don’t care.” 

He looks confident when he makes such sweeping statements. His blunt attitude makes people laugh.

Ronny continues: “We need an Asian president. Man or Woman. Get that Asian President in the White House. We will fix this place in a week!”

True! Asians can do that! (See the photo of me with Andrew Yang next.)

Just look at all of the important historical events involving Asian Americans that took place in May:

May 7, 1843  Arrival of the first Japanese immigrants to the U.S.

May 10, 1869 The completion of the Transnational Railroad, in which the majority of the workforce were Chinese laborers. This marks the 150^th Anniversary of the celebration of the railroad’s completion.

May 6, 1882  The Chinese Exclusion Act was signed by the U.S. government to exclude all immigration of Chinese laborers. This was the first U.S. law affecting immigration.With their largest source of labor cut off, railroads began recruiting laborers from Japan and Korea. Japanese and Koreans were soon excluded under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

May 26, 1924  The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants based on a national origins quota. The law was signed to completely exclude immigrants from Asia under the Asian Exclusion Act. 

The Grammy Award winning Kurt Elling, a jazz singer and an alumnus of Gustavus Adolphus College in St Peter, Minnesota, joined the Jazz Day in Melbourne. I had the opportunity to see his fabulous performance at the Dakota Bar in Minneapolis in March! He sent his social justice messages to us with his respectful, passionate, and thoughtful feelings. It was an incredible show. 

April 30 was International Jazz Day. UNESCO first declared it in 2011 to unite people all over the world through jazz. Jazz keyboard player Herbie Hancock originated the idea when he was serving as Goodwill Ambassador. This year’s Jazz Day was launched in Melbourne, Australia.

About 200 countries have participated in Jazz Day. The event was previously hosted in such cities as Paris, New Orleans, New York, Istanbul, Osaka, Washington, D.C., Havana, St. Petersburg and Sydney.