We plan to have our full team of bloggers, photographers, and volunteers at this event. It’s going to be a crazy three days for us. Remember, we’ll be uploading photos in (near) real-time of all the cosplayers that we see!

Here’s one final note from our friend Lance Fensterman of New York Anime Festival: More »

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Title is pretty self explanatory. 140+ Photos. Included in this gallery are lots and lots of Wonder Girls, lots of JYP, and a good amount of J-Lim, G-Soul, Min. There’s some added atmosphere shots as well. Enjoy!

Photograph credits: Lan Nguyen, Lara Visconti.

One thing of note is we’re trying out a new gallery system. Let us know what you think. Our interview and videos of the performances are coming soon. It took some time to translate and sub them and there were some issues beyond our control. Still, we got some good videos to post later!

Enjoy this in the meantime: More »

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(left to right: Sun Mi, Ye Eun, Yoo Bin, So Hee, Sun Ye)

Wow! Just wow. There’s a lot that happened today but I’ll let the other bloggers take care of putting together a full write up. I just want to lay down some quick thoughts down before getting some much needed sleep and introduce some of the videos and photos we have. More »

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Every year, the Korean Produce Association in Flushing, New York, puts together a big, public event to celebrate Chuseok - the Korean equivalent of Thanksgiving. This year Wondergirls are the headline act and Miss Info of Hot 97 is the host. I’ve also been told that other members of JYP’s label are expected to perform such as J-Lim and G-Soul friends of Ningin from our Rebuilding the Bridge Charity event back in July. Many others, including JYP, will be making special appearances. (Note, I haven’t been able to get hard confirmation of anything besides Wondergirls and Miss Info.)

Ningin has been granted a private, video interview with the Wondergirls which we will post sometime soon after the event! Four Ningin bloggers (yes 4!) will be covering this event, Mia, Lan, Lara, and Jessica because we’re trying to get as many interviews, photographs, and videos as we can. We’re also planning to provide hi-definition streaming of the event, but that depends on weather conditions and equipment setup of the event host. Should be a fun Sunday =)

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Ningin has always had a lot of visitors from South Korea and other Asian countries. We’re quite proud of that actually because it means we’re transcending national and cultural boundaries. It doesn’t matter who or where you are, if you’re interested in Asian media, we’re happy to have you here! So to better serve our international members (and really everyone in general) allow me to introduce Tara Popp, our newest blogger from South Korea:

차렷, 경래, 안녕하세요! (Cha-lyut, gyung-lae, ahnyoung-ha-sae-yo! = Attention! Bow and say hello!) Well that is one way to say hello in South Korea, especially at an institute, I suppose. More »

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In case you haven’t heard, we’re partners with the New York Anime Festival! This is our biggest event partnership so far and so we felt something special was needed to promote it. Well, the 7 Days, 7 New Bloggers special worked out so well for us, we decided to do 8 Days of Anime (the number 8 is lucky in many Asian cultures). For 8 days, starting on Thursday September 18th, we will be posting at least two articles a day about something Anime related. We’re hoping that if we hyped up Anime enough online, you’ll be all hyped up for the real world event in NYC. In addition to articles, we’re also doing a roundtable discussion for the first time on Ningin where bloggers and members get a chance to share their opinions on a particular anime topic. Also joining as part of this 8 Days of Anime special are two very good friends of Ningin, Xorsyst.com & Otakuden.com, because we love working with good people and they have very interesting websites.

So here’s a list of planned articles which is more or less solid: More »

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Here’s a note from one of the NYAF Organizer, Lance Fensterman:

There are only 2 weeks to the New York Anime Festival and you still don’t have a ticket! Buy your ticket today so you can spend the next few weeks deciding who you are going with, what you are wearing and how you are getting there. It’s easy to get tickets online and we highly recommend buying your tickets in advance. Choose from weekend passes, VIP, daily or if you are really popular and have 10 or more friends, you can each save money on your ticket and buy group tickets.

The New York Anime Festival features exclusive and extensive anime screenings, guests from America and Japan, manga, cosplay, video games, live-action Japanese cinema, fashion, food, and the cultural treasures that gave birth to Japanese pop culture. More »

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Mixr Media, LLC, and Reed Exhibitions announce a new promotional partnership for the New York Anime Festival (NYAF) taking place from Friday, September 26th to Sunday, September 28th at the Jacob Javitz Center.

Mixr Media, LLC, will be providing complete coverage before and during the NYAF on its Asian entertainment community site Ningin.com. Leading up to the start of the festival, anime fans can find pre-show interviews with Anime voice actors and New York Anime Festival founder Peter Tatara.

During the festival, the Ningin.com booth will provide live blogging coverage of the event. The Ningin.com booth will also host free cosplay photo sessions constantly throughout the festival. Cosplayers who get their photo taken at the Ningin.com booth will receive collectible Ningin.com-NYAF stickers. The online Cosplayer Photo Gallery will be updated live from the festival. More »

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I’ve always emphasized that Ningin is a community for anyone interested in Asian Media. Last week, we greatly expanded that community adding seven new voices in seven new blogs (9 new bloggers). It’s been a fun seven days for us to say the least. All of them have added something different to Ningin with their diverse perspectives on the world of Asian media.

For those of you that have followed us since we added blogs around April, you can clearly see how much we’ve grown. That pace is only going to get faster with the additions we have planned. Lots more bloggers are in queue to be added. Lots more features and functionality. Lots more similar communities like Ningin to join. With all that said, we’re always going to be interested in ideas and partnerships from enthusiastic people. Just drop me a note either here or here. More »

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The last blog in our 7 Days, 7 New Blogs event isn’t what you would normally expect from a blog. It’s more a community project that started alone, then joined Ningin for a larger reach.The Asian Heroes Blog profiles successful Asians worthy of being role models. There’s already 40+ profiles written, so plenty to read and explore! Here’s more from the project founder, Stephen Chen:

Warren Buffet said, “Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you how you’ll turn out to be.”

Some friends and I took this to heart and with we soon realized there is a real opportunity to highlight the success stories of Asian heroes. They are our catalysts for change, recognizing possibilities and have the courage to take on risk; to realize that people are most in danger of not being what they might have been.

We hope you will read this blog, be introduced to the titans of the world, be inspired to go out and innovate, and lastly, to discover the great potential of being someone else’s hero.

Along the way, I encourage you to write back and let me know about your progress. I am always available at stephenchen@ningin.com.

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Meet Juls Lee:

Hi everyone!

I’ve been racking my brains for something terribly witty and clever to say to start my blog off with. However, in this event of nothing incredibly genius coming to mind, I am forced to go with my first and original thought:

Dear my friend, Hello ^^ My name is Jul. How are you? I hope you are well, and we can be happy buddies I like to blog. Do you like to read? Please read my blog! Hooray and Thank you.

…which is in essence, all I wanted to say really. Phew! Now with that awkward bit out of the way, a wee bitty bit aboot the moi. More »

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You guys ask for more interviews, more features, more photos, more stories and we’ve listen. From September 2nd until September 8th - 7 straight days - Ningin will add one new blogger to our roster. Each day, one new blogger will make a personal introduction so you can get to know him or her better.

Soon, Ningin will also have podcasts, video blogging, and many other new features and applications. And we’re always looking for more bloggers. If you want to be a Ningin blogger, head over to this page.

Thanks for helping us grow and please welcome the new bloggers to the Ningin community!

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We’ve been quietly testing our newest community, GirlyBubble.com for about a week and we’re ready now to show the world! GirlyBubble is for young females with an appreciation of all things related to being a girl. GirlyBubble.com focuses on fashion, beauty, design, entertainment, food, culture, gadgets, gossip, and other girly curiosities.

Three bloggers form the core of GirlyBubble’s unique voice: Ming, Lan and Tiffany. Each brings her own interpretation of “girliness,” offering users a wide variety of subjects to read and discuss. Rather than catering to any unique point of interest such as fashion or celebrity gossip, GirlyBubble highlights “girliness” in its many forms and personal tastes to generate an open forum for the online female community. Participants can contribute their own discussions of what “girliness” means to them.

All sites within the Mixr Media network, such as Ningin and GirlyBubble, are tied together via a common login system which allows users to travel from one Mixr Media site to another and keep the same profiles, friends lists, and other personal information. Give GirlyBubble a look around, give us some feedback on it, and win a chance for a $100 gift certificate to buy anything on Amazon.com!

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I just saw one of the best, most dramatic and meaningful baseball games in a long time this morning, South Korea vs. Cuba in the gold medal match of the Beijing Olympics. Let me try to setup the stage for you. Cuba is to international baseball like Brazil is to World Cup soccer, perennial powerhouse. The three favorites to medal were Japan, Cuba, and the United States, so South Korea according to odds makers, wasn’t even suppose to medal. Somehow, South Korea improbably won 8 straight games including defeating Japan in the semi-finals one day prior. Cuba defeated the United States in the semis losing only once to South Korea in regular play and looking to avenge their loss. And Cuba easily has the best hitters in the game, some good enough for the Major Leagues, but South Korea has dominant pitching, especially today’s champ and Korean Ace, Ryu Hyun-jin. (more on Ryu later)

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For the 3rd time this year, we’ve changed the Ningin layout based on numerous feedback and critiques. So thanks to everyone who contributed their thoughts and opinions! We hope you find this incarnation a little easier to use and a little easier on the eyes. (You might press F5 to refresh your browser if things look weird.) Though keep in mind that Ningin is constantly a work in progress. There are many more features and applications we have on our roadmap. Not only that, but we’re in the process of adding many, many more bloggers in the next few weeks. Expect more events, more content partnerships, and more great things in general.

One minor change that we’ve made somewhat unceremoniously a couple of weeks ago is our tagline – from Asian Media Exchange to Asian Media Community. (How many people actually noticed that?) We feel that the word “community” fits us better because that’s in a nutshell who and what we are. With the help of you, our users, Ningin is a community of people interested in all things related to Asian media. Wonderful things tend to happen when you put people together with similar interests and that’s been a big driver of growth and ideas for us.

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Lan and Alvin have already did a great job of talking about the acts and personal anecdotes for the Rebuilding the Bridge event last Saturday. I’ve been meaning to write my own summary for the past week, but I’ve had very little downtime. Plus, I’m thoroughly, every-inch-of-my-body exhausted. I don’t think I ever felt exhaustion before, but it really sucks. This isn’t a complaint, merely an explanation why I’m so slow to respond to emails, txt msgs, Facebook, and just about everything else right now. Everything was worth it and I’ll get to why after you watch this montage.

Rebuilding the Bridge was a huge success in so many ways. There were a lot of things to take away from that night. It was personally one of the best nights of my life in terms of the people I’ve met and the connections I’ve made. First, some perspective: the reception part of the event officially started at 7:30pm. People started coming in at 6:30pm. The house was full at 7pm. The line for the performance part was all the way to the end of the street about half a mile long by 7pm.

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Believe it or not, we had less then three weeks to plan Rebuilding the Bridge. Believe it or not, we had zero money - no budget - when we started. All we had at the start was an idea and five people with a burning desire to do something about the tragic, tragic earthquake in Sichuan, China. But what can five people do alone? We built a coalition and now five people became a unified community. The underlying premise was, “If Asians can’t come together for something so tragic, what will we come together for?” So this coalition of Asian non-profits, for-profits, old media, new media, political offices, and everything else became the body of a movement with compassion for a soul.

Now here we are, 13 hours away from one of the biggest, if not the biggest Asian charity event in NYC this year. In less than three weeks we secured Ryan Leslie, Planet B-Boy break dancing crews, J-Lim, Beau Sia, and Andrew Choi. We’ve had many artist and entertainers volunteer their time and services. Many of which we ultimately couldn’t fit. We’ve had an outpouring of support from Asian and non-Asian organizations and corporations alike. Without them, we would have no money, no venue, and no hope. All of those bricks were laid in less than three weeks.

I’m painting a rosy picture. Many times we were thinking it’s over; we just lost our venue, we just lost some sponsors, and we just lost our headline act (multiple times). All the issues and all the drama during this building process seems irrelevant now, staring at the event 13 hours in the future. When you think about the scale and reach of what we were doing and in the timeframe that we did it, literally a dozen small miracles had to have happened. Why put ourselves under such pressure to produce a show of this caliber in less than three weeks? This was the only timeframe we had to work with the Jabbawockeez…

So we lost our headline act about 4 days before the event; the act that we built this entire event around. As much as I want to get into why this happen, there are numerous reasons why it’s easier that I don’t. For the record, please don’t blame the Jabbawockeez members and managers for this. They really do care about what we’re trying to do and said that if they had a choice, they would be at our event in a heartbeat. They are the same guys that you’ve read about before this event, and the fame of winning America’s Best Dance Crew has not changed them one bit.

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I can’t really say just yet. There were many parties involved which made things chaotic. No need to vilify Jabbawockeez. I personally wish them the best.

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Hey all, if you have any feedback about our video player or any part of our video streaming application, we would like to know. Specifically, let us know about download speed, page load time, and any bugs you find.

Sorry about the bugs here and there the past couple of days and for some site downtime. We had to push our video streaming app, currently called “Mediastream”, out much earlier than anticipated to work with the AAFilmLab and their Shootout. It’s still months away from completion.

The site downtime issues should be fixed. We launched the streaming of the Shootout films the same day the charity event was widely announced and had huge spikes in traffic that our servers could not handle. We’ve since upgraded our server hardware as of 4am EST this morning.

Some of the videos have encoding issues, specifically ”Cold War” by Color TV. There’s some weird encoding issue that only affects that video and I haven’t had time to figure it out with the Sichuan Charity event we’re co-sponsoring and co-organizing.

There’s one more team video we haven’t uploaded yet, from team Ying Yang With a Twist. Their video was submitted late and so we’ll post it whenever it’s ready.

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For the past few weeks Ningin and Museum of Chinese America have been secretly planning a massive Charity Event for the victims of the Sichuan Earthquake. It took us a while, but we finally have the big details locked down. Jabbawockeez is the main performing artist along with Ryan Leslie, Beau Sia, and Andrew Choi. Also special guest appearances by Park Jin Young (JYP) and Ken Leung, aka Miles from the TV show Lost. The incredible Minya Oh, Miss Info of HOT 97, will be the event host. There’s more performers and celebrities pending confirmation, but it’s a pretty big lineup already.

Save the date! Saturday July 12th, 7:30pm at Pace University’s Michael Schimmel Center of the Arts Auditorium!

100% of the proceeds from this event goes directly to MercyCorps.

While this is all fun and entertaining, the overriding goal is to maintain awareness of the earthquake victims in China and the cyclones in Burma. Already these disasters have fallen of the headlines in mainstream media but tens of millions of people need our help there and will continue to need help for many years to come.

This Jabbawockeez headlined performance is really just the first step towards that goal. Ningin and many others will partner together to develop a special microsite dedicated to maintaining awareness for these victims and we welcome anyone else who wants to join the cause. I’ll update what this entails as more details get confirmed. For now, if you are an Asian blogger or a blog that covers Asian stuff, contact me via Ningin private message to see how you can get a ticket to this event and get involved!

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