Hollywood’s push to appeal to younger Asian audiences.

Welcome to VOA Asia Weekly. I'm Chris Casquejo in Washington. That story is just ahead, but first, making headlines:

South Korea's military said Wednesday that a recovered North Korean rocket which crashed into the sea after a failed launch in late May had "no military utility as a reconnaissance satellite at all." Military experts said it is the first time South Korea has secured a satellite that the North has launched.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen arrived in Beijing on Thursday for meetings with senior Chinese officials on a broad range of issues, including U.S. concerns about a Chinese counterespionage law that went into effect on July 1.

Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, issued a warning Tuesday to pro-democracy activists accused of violating the territory's National Security Law, saying they would "live in fear" unless they turned themselves in. Hong Kong police on Monday issued arrest warrants for eight activists, charging them with national security offenses and offering a bounty of more than $127,000 each for information leading to their arrests.

The Taiwanese Army ended its two-day live fire drills Tuesday, which aimed to test combat readiness and demonstrate the firepower of the armed forces.

The International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Mariano Grossi said Wednesday he was "satisfied" with what he saw after visiting Japan’s tsunami-wrecked nuclear power plant.

In a report submitted to Japanese President Fumio Kishida, the United Nation’s IAEA affirmed the safety of a contentious plan to release treated radioactive water into the sea.

A massive earthquake and tsunami 12 years ago destroyed the Fukushima Daiichi plant’s cooling systems, causing three reactors to melt and contaminating their cooling water, which has leaked continuously. The water is collected, treated and stored in about 1,000 tanks, which will reach their capacity in early 2024.

“We say that there would be, if any, the effects will be negligible. Negligible is practically irrelevant.”

Grossi was also scheduled to visit South Korea and the Pacific Islands.

In recent years, TV shows and movies featuring Asians, including Chinese Americans, have been on the rise. Many of them target younger audiences. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee spoke to students at the Taiwanese School summer camp in Washington to get their thoughts on this trend.

A cool Taiwanese treat -- it's just one cultural activity that director C.C. Hsu hopes to teach her 13-year-old daughter and other students at this Washington DC Taiwanese School summer camp.

“You just got to tuck the edges in and make a smooth skin on top.”

Many here are the children or grandchildren of Taiwanese immigrants. When they are not at camp, Hsu says she’s happy these students can see people who look like them on screen.

“I’m really enjoying the representation that is being put into the media.”

“Shang-Chi where now Asian and Asian Americans can be superheroes.”

Hsu can relate to some of the scenes in Disney's new TV show "American Born Chinese."

“I remember having my name mispronounced. I absolutely remember having a brand new Asian student, Chinese student, actually, come to my elementary school and me getting dragged out of class to be the guide for this brand-new student.”

“Is there a Jim Wang here?”

“Wong.”

“This is Wing Chung.”

“Wei Chen.”

“He’s a new student and he’s Chinese like you. He’s going to tag along to all your classes.”

Some Hollywood productions have been accused of self-censoring to avoid angering Beijing and improving their chances of capturing the large Chinese movie market but that seems to have changed.

“They [Hollywood] realized that it’s not as automatic as they thought, and the kinds of investment and sort of kowtowing that would require was no guarantee that it was going to happen.”

Because access to the Chinese market is not guaranteed, Hollywood seems to stick with universal themes when telling Asian American stories. More Asian American films and shows might also be due to anti-Asian hate incidents that made headlines during the pandemic, says Chinese YouTuber Yao Zhang, who resides in Canada.

“Some people, especially Chinese people, want to show the world that we are not all spies.”

Some of these students would like to see more characters with backgrounds like theirs.

“If a child wants to be something other than a doctor, lawyer and engineer, that is acceptable, you know, we won’t try to push you out of it.”

Outside of camp, Hsu’s daughter dabbles in acting, recreationally, for now.

Elizabeth Lee, VOA News, Washington.
Visit voanews.com for the most up-to-date stories. Thanks for watching VOA Asia Weekly. I’m Chris Casquejo. See you next week.