Fieldnotes - Pecan Yoh

Canada, The Chronicle Herald's unionized staff has been on strike for 176 days. These are people who have spent their careers providing news for Atlantic Canada This is a recording with Paul Schneidereit and Louise Le Pierres, who have put in decades at the Herald. It really breaks my heart that people have put in years they will never get back to keep what is quickly degenerating into absolute garbage, and there's nothing they can do but stand outside their place of work and protest. And it's hard, hard work. If you liked the Herald, if you want journalism, you should be reading the Local Xpress. Stay up to date on the strike with @HTU_official. If you're still reading the Herald, you're reading the work of replacement workers. Everyone has their reasons for choosing to cross the picket lines, but there's no denying that the quality of the paper has declined. Examples such the fear-mongering article published in April which claimed that Syrian children were bullying their classmates, inferring home grown terrorism and propagating racial profiling. But more than a decline in quality, they've just hired James Risdon, hailing from New Brunswick, where somehow, his bigoted, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, Ghomeshi apologist views have made him a suitable candidate for covering the Halifax Pride Parade. In Invisibilia's episode this week, Flip the Script, they give us the story of two cops in Aarhus, Denmark, who reached out to the budding radicalists in their community. It tells the story of Jamal, a Somalian immigrant to Denmark, who sought to belong and was instead met with racial profiling and alienation. It led him to a point where he said to himself: "... they called me a terrorist. I would give them a terrorist."  And Jamal came close to leaving for Syria. His friends left for Syria. But then the cops, Allan and Thorleif, called him. They asked him to sit down for a chat. They gave him a mentor. They showed him kindness. And while across Europe, people kept leaving to fight the jihad, Aarhus lost only one to the call of ISIS. In hiring replacement workers, the Herald has proven that they have no respect for the right of workers, no respect for the people who have made the paper possible. In hiring people like James Risdon and publishing the aformentioned fear-mongering articles, they are putting Canadians at risk. They are encouraging more hate and fear. They are encouraging the stripping of women's rights to our bodies. They are encouraging a more difficult life for the LGBTQ2+. They are saying that Black lives don't matter. By hiring people like James Risdon, The Chronicle Herald is dividing our nation. To support the strikers please donate to Local Xpress, and boycott businesses that still advertise with the Herald. Alternatively, you can write Marc Lever and Sarah Dennis to express your concerns.

Alice Munro has been translated into traditional Chinese in Taiwan. I met a boy who was reading The Love of a Good Woman. I needed him to like it.“The cows hadn’t cropped all the weeds. Sopping wet, they brushed against her stockings. The path was clear, though, under the riverbank trees, those big willows with the wild grape hanging on to them like monkeys’ shaggy arms. Mist was rising so that you could hardly see the river. You had to fix your eyes, concentrate, and then a spot of water would show through, quiet as water in a pot. There must be a moving current, but she could not find it.Then she saw a movement, and it wasn’t in the water. There was a boat moving. Tied to a branch, a plain old rowboat was being lifted very slightly, lifted and let fall. Now that she had found it, she kept watching it, as if it could say something to her. And it did. It said something gentle and final.You know. You know.”Brought to you with love from Taipei, where I spent a weekend at the Taiwan National University of the Arts with Actor's Family on an exchange / retreat.

Sergio Lasky moved to Toronto, Ontario from Mexico City and decided to like it.

This is Pecan Yoh and I ask a lot of questions. For my podcast, Fieldnotes, I sat down with Emily from Dating in the Dot and asked her some questions. And now I want to hear from you, her readers. I want to know which were your favourite blogposts and who were your favourite guys. Record yourself on your phone, your laptop, anything! And send it into [email protected] Thank you!

After the events in Paris earlier this week, the French consulate arranged a gathering at Tamar Park. I went to experience the atmosphere and ask some questions.  

CHOLPON IDRISOVA in FUKUOKA , JAPAN.A talk with Cholpon Idrisova, associate producer of Kurmanjan Datka, Queen of the Mountains, Kyrgyzstan's submission to the Oscars 2015. We sat down in Fukuoka Japan, at the Focus on Asia NeoCinemap and talked about her country, her film, and her career.Check out the film hereSpecial Thanks to Yuko Esaki for arranging the entire event.