TastyDesign

Free Hao Wu!

Lea este post en Español (via El-Oso.NET)
English version via  Global Voices
We appeal to the Chinese government for Hao Wu’s immediate release!

What happened to Hao?

Hao Wu (Chinese name: 吴皓), a Chinese documentary filmmaker who lived in the U.S. between 1992 and 2004, was detained by the Beijing division of China’s State Security Bureau on the afternoon of Wednesday, Febuary 22, 2006. On that afternoon, Hao had met in Beijing with a congregation of a Christian church not recognized by the Chinese government, as part of the filming of his next documentary.

Hao had also been in phone contact with Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer specializing in human rights cases. Gao confirmed to one of Hao’s friends that the two had been in phone contact and planned to meet on Feb. 22, but that their meeting never took place after Gao advised against it. On Friday, Feb. 24, Hao’s editing equipment and several videotapes were removed from the apartment where he had been staying. Hao has been in touch his family since Feb. 22, but judging from the tone of the conversations, he wasn’t able to speak freely. One of Hao’s friends has been interrogated twice since his detention. Beijing’s Public Security Bureau (the police) has confirmed that Hao has been detained, but have declined to specify the charges against him.

The reason for Hao’s detention is unknown. One of the possibilities is that the authorities who detained Hao want to use him and his video footage to prosecute members of China’s underground Churches. Hao is an extremely principled individual, who his friends and family believe will resist such a plan. Therefore, we are very concerned about his mental and physical well-being.

More about Hao: From Scientist to Computer Guy to Filmmaker.

Hao began his filmmaking career in 2004, when he gave up his job as a senior product manager at Atlanta-based Earthlink Inc. and returned to China to film Beijing or Bust, a collage of interviews with U.S.-born ethnic Chinese who now live in China’s capital city. Before working for Earthlink, Hao worked as a product manager for Internet portal Excite from 2000 to 2001 in Redwood City, CA Before that, Hao had also worked as a strategic planning and product development director for Merchant Internet Group, an intern for American Express Co. and a molecular biologist with UCB Research Inc.

Hao earned an MBA degree from University of Michigan Business School in May 2000 and a Master of Science in molecular and cell biology in July, 1995 from Brandeis University, where he was awarded a full merit-based scholarship. Before studying in the U.S., Hao earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from the China University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui province in June, 1992.

Hao the Blogger.

Poema: "Tio Juancho", por Ruben Villalobos

To read this poem in English visit Nebur's World

Tio Juancho

(por Ruben Villalobos, traducido al Español por Marianne Villalobos)

Cánteme, tío,

enseñeme las canciones de los pájaros

que nunca he visto volar,

enséñeme las canciones que ya no puedo recordar.

 

Dígame, tío,

como me dijo cuando le pregunté hace tantos años:

¿por qué duermen algunas plantas al tocarlas?

¿por qué dan algunas hierbas una leche calmante

que puedo untarme a la piel

para aliviar las picadas de los mosquitos

que en todo caso a Ud. no le molestan?

¿Por qué al cortar el tallo del banano

el mismo crece al instante delante mis ojos?

Y ¿por qué crecen unos guineos pequeños, marrones y dulces

mientras otros crecen grandes y no tan dulces

pero ricos, cuando Mamacita o

Yaya o Mercedes

(pero nunca un hombre)

los fríe y les echa sal?

 

Dígame tio,

¿cómo puede hacer cocada todo el día

(todos estos años),

romper la cáscara del coco

con un solo machetazo y

darme el dulce limo mantecoso del coco

que resbala por mi lengua

(todos estos años)

rallar el coco, mezclar la miel

sobre el fuego candente

que cuece la cocada y le quema a Ud.

(todos estos años),

embolar la cocada aun caliente

y dajarla enfriar mientrars qu Ud. limpia la paila

y el batidor

y el machete

para que estén listos para la próxima vez,

entonces llamarme para que pruebe el dulce recien hecho

¡Rubén, vén acá!

A Poem: "A Lost Art" by John N. Hilliard

This poem is a tribute to the long gone culinary art that has vanished from our cultures. This is a cry that was written around 1910, I am not sure the exact date, but it is just beautiful. I would do more research in the future to find out the exact dates and location of the author when he wrote it. No doubt this is a n important piece in culinary history. Immigrants from Europe mostly felt frustrated about the food prepared in the US at the time.

A Lost Art (by John N. Hilliard)

Ah! the culinary art - faith! has it fled
With the dead?
Do the monarchs of the modern kitchen know
How to broil or roast or fry,
Make a soufflé or a pie,
Like the ancients did?
Well, I answer, "No!"

For the people of the present, young and old,
Live for gold,
And they have no leisure sooth in which to eat;
See them scorching home on wheels,
Thirty minutes grace for meals,
Or they walk their soles and heels
Off their feet.

Read the golden "ads" in cars and magazines
Of baked beans,
And of banquets concentrated in a can;
Read of food prepared in flakes,
And of patent flour cakes,
Good for all the ills and aches
In a man.

´Tis a wondrous age, I grant, an age of steam,
And supreme;
´Tis and age of wonders wrought in steel and stone;
´Tis an age Time can not pace,
When our thoughts with lightning race,
And our words are tossed through space
To each zone.

But we have no chefs, today, of any fame
Like Careme,
Like Chatillon, a Vatel or a Ude;
We fry beef stakes in a pan,
Which is bad for the beast or man,
And we breakfast on a plan
Just as rude.

So the culinary art, I think, has fled
With the dead,
With the ancient recipe for Massic wine;
Ah! I would I had the pen
Of a Savarin, for then
I would teach all kinds of men
How to dine.

Tags: poem, poetry, cookingdiva, culinary art, panama, chef