December 1 is World AIDS Day. Gao Jun is an AIDS orphan in a remote village of Anhui Province, China. In this Academy Award-winning documentary, the young protagonist does not speak a word until the closing minutes of the film. And little is known about him, not even his age. What is known, and is poignantly depicted in this film, is how traditional Chinese obligations of family and village collide with the terror of infection with HIV/AIDS and how these forces play out in the lives of children like Gao Jun.

Slides of works from the exhibition “Social Graphics: the Art of Jeski (Jeseok Yi)” will be on display in the reception area.
This event is free of charge thanks to the generosity of The Korea Society.
Participants must register online (http://www.worldaffairspittsburgh.memberlodge.org/Default.aspx?pageId=11...) to attend. No-shows and cancellations after November 29, 2011 will be charged. Please advise in advance of any dietary restrictions.

China Town Hall is a national day of programming on China, involving fifty cities throughout the United States. The event will consist of a reception with light refreshments beginning at 6:30 p.m., followed by a live webcast at 6:50 p.m. from Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinksi, former national security advisor and current counselor and trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C. After the webcast, the local guest speaker Dr. A.

The Consulate General of Japan in New York and the Pittsburgh JET Alumni Association welcome anyone interested in applying to teach English at K-12 schools in Japan or work as a coordinator for international relations in local and state government offices in Japan to join us for this information session about the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program. For 24 years, the JET Program has welcomed over 54,000 participants from 56 countries to create grassroots connections for international exchange.

ASIA OVER LUNCH LECTURE – Noon in 4130 Posvar. Please feel free to join us for this lecture – all are welcome to bring their lunch or a snack along if you wish and enjoy!
Abstract TBA.

Please note that during the fall term, this series will be held on Wednesdays. In spring term, it will return to its usual Thursday schedule. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Purposeful Penny, a GSPIA student organization raising funds for educational development in developing countries, will host its third fundraising dinner. All food will be prepared by our "volunteer chefs." You will get to taste dishes from Korea, Russia, Mexico, Japan, Finland, Nepal, Puerto Rico, Peru, Chile, China, Sudan and the US all at one place! We will also have a raffle basket prize event themed as inter-cultural candy & cookie basket for your use on the Halloween Day.

This paper investigates the acquisition of imperfective aspect marker -teiru in Japanese. Through the analysis of caretaker speech and children's speech, it tests the predictions of the Language Bioprogram Hypothesis (Bickerton, 1981) and the Distributional Bias Hypothesis (Shirai & Andersen, 1995). The results show strong correspondences between input and children's language, and support the latter hypothesis.

Light refreshments will be served.

Although many Americans are familiar with the kimono and similar fashions for men and women that are still worn in modern Japan, very few are familiar with one of the most elaborate of all styles, known as the twelve-layered robe (jūnihitoe, pronounced joo-nee-he-toe-eh) that often weigh in excess of 50 pounds, only seen today in museums, period films, or at certain annual festivals in Japan, as production of these robes has almost died out.

The relationship between the United States and Vietnam is significant in its

Abstract:
Ikema is an endangered dialect of Southern Ryukyuan spoken on Miyakojima Island, Japan. The community is deeply concerned that the younger generation is not acquiring Ikema and has imaginatively tackled this problem by, among things, creating a vernacular musical titled Nishihara Muradate ‘The making of the Nishihara village’. The musical, depicting the migration to Nishihara from their ancestral island, was filmed and made into a DVD.