All posts tagged: MahJong

Hallmark faces backlash over ‘whitewashed’ new Mahjong movie

Hallmark faces backlash over ‘whitewashed’ new Mahjong movie

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter The Hallmark Channel has faced criticism following the announcement of its new original romcom All’s Fair in Love and Mahjong, which features a majority white cast. Set to premiere May 9, the movie stars Fiona Gubelmann, Paul Campbell, Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe, Tamera Mowry-Housley and Melissa Peterman, and follows a school nurse who turns her love of the Chinese tile-based game Mahjong into a new path, according to a logline. Invented in China in the mid-to-late 19th century, Mahjong was developed from older Chinese card and domino games and features 144 tiles, each marked with Chinese symbols representing currency, numbers and cultural values. While Lowe, 45, is half Chinese, the network is being criticized on social media for not having greater Asian representation in its main cast and “appropriating” Chinese culture. “This slap-in-the-face Hallmark movie is coming out during AAPI Heritage Month,” …

Laura Kim Toasts to Lunar New Year With Her Monse Partner Fernando García and a Mah-Jong Cake

Laura Kim Toasts to Lunar New Year With Her Monse Partner Fernando García and a Mah-Jong Cake

Published by Sam Flores

On Wednesday night, fashion designer Laura Kim invited her nearest and dearest over to her Lower East Side apartment for her version of a Lunar New Year celebration. There were a few deviations from ancient traditions—Kim’s dinner, which she prepared herself, came with custom cocktails incorporating cognac from Maison Martell and a guest list that combined over 4 million Instagram followers. Kim, wearing a fuzzy pink sweater and studded jeans, was joined by Fernando García, her design partner at Monse and, until recently, Oscar de la Renta, influencer and restaurateur Ezra J. William, Max Mara’s SVP of marketing and communications Judgie Graham, Felicia Quaning, and socialite and model Nicky Hilton Rothschild. They all took off their fashionable shoes and put on slippers that Kim laid out in her entryway as they entered her home. García and Kim with the mah-jong dessert from Empire Cakes. Lauren Cowart Rothschild recently relocated to London with her husband and three children, but she was back in town for a slew of New York Fashion Week commitments. She was traveling …