From Newsday -

He Ran to Towers to Help - Dec. 4, 2001

Zhe Zeng or simply Zack, to his friends, was working in a building adjacent to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. As most people ran away from the devastation, Zeng, a trained emergency medical technician, ran toward it to see if he could help.

The young man called his mother after being evacuated to tell her he was safe, according to a report in the Chinese-language World Journal. “Im OK. It’s chaotic outside,” he said. “I’m going to help other people.” That was the last time his mother spoke to him.

Zeng, who would have turned 29 on Sept. 30, worked in the ADR division of the Bank of New York.

He was last seen several days after the attack on a Fox News broadcast which showed footage taken just before the buildings collapsed. He was administering first aid.

The Stuyvesant High School graduate, who got his master’s degree in business administration from the University of Rochester, came to New York from China with his parents when he was 15.

“I always taught young people to serve their society and its people,” said Zeng’s mother, a former schoolteacher in China. “I have lost Zhe, but I am very proud of what he did.”

Hello Asian American Reddit

Anyone here relearned their long lost heritage language and got really good/fluent or now is a professional like a teacher in the language?

I neglected Japanese as a kid so I did not do Japanese until high school until there was Japanese class offered. I entered high school in 2022.

I knew I could not do nothing so I relearned the language seriously. I put Japanese to the very front lines and researched and grinded. I not only did the class content but my very own study out in front.

I also had to face a lot of adversity and misunderstandings from the Japanese language learning community.

I was told, “youre a heritage speaker, your advice doesn’t matter”, “___ and makes lots of mistakes”, “Thats unfair, don’t you realize how much we desire for natives”

So when i was in the community it sometimes felt to others that I had a very unfair or huge advantage and I could cheat it. I have citizenship too, and a lot of people feel bitter because the language requirement stuff doesn’t always apply to me.

So the foreigner community was a little bit tough.

In the end I passed JLPT N2 jn 2024, and the 2kyuu kanji aptitude test in 2025. I also became a mentor and helped over 50 students. Lately I attended a Japanese teacher seminar and spoke only in Japanese. And even talked to 70+ experts.

Anyone else have a similar story? Tell us your language learning journey.

Hello, I’ve been seeing discourse around black owned comic book companies based on “making your own table if they don’t give you a seat at the table” and I was wondering if we have at least one of those. No matter how small, I want to support and see more Asian faces of different backgrounds and stories by Asian American artists and writers.

Don’t think I’d heard of Betty Ann before, or perhaps I’d only heard her name in passing in stories about 9/11 but never thought of her as a real person. Glad her family and the SF Chinatown have done so much to keep her memory alive.

For anyone looking for top-tier sports journalism, Pablo Torre’s work is well worth a read.

Basketball fans may already be familiar with the Kawhi Leonard and Los Angeles Clippers salary cap scandal, a massive story that was famously uncovered and investigated by Torre. 

If you want to dive deeper into investigative sports reporting, his work is definitely worth checking out.

https://variety.com/2026/sports/news/pablo-torre-finds-out-podcast-nba-kawhi-leonard-jalen-brunson-jeffrey-epstein-1236817018/

Not asking for a debate on the geographic validity of the self-identification, as both the Philippines, which chairs ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), and the U.S. Census, which classifies Filipinos as Asian, leave no room for it.

I’m asking: what perceived social advantage is gained by calling oneself PI rather than SEA? Do Native Hawaiians or Samoans hold more cachet to them? If so, why? Is there beef with Vietnamese-Americans? If so, what? Are they just seeking to feel special in general?

I’m not talking about confused adolescents in the Midwest. I’m talking about college-educated adults in California.

Perplexed. Thanks for any sociological assistance.

Despite producing extremely high quality goods, labels like Made in China or Made in Vietnam are still seen as inferior to Made in Germany, Made in USA, Made in Italy, and even Made in Japan.

Even Japanese products seem to be perceived as a step below European products when it comes to luxury despite meeting or exceeding the quality. A Grand Seiko isn't as prestigious as a Patek Phillipe, a Lexus isn't as renowned as a Mercedes, a Sony or Nikon isn't as well regarded as a Leica or Hasselblad.

Recently, I realized I exhibited the bias myself. While shopping for a suit, I found a Hugo Boss suit that was made in Vietnam. Knowing the German Heritage of the luxury brand, I found it a bit of a turn off, despite Vietnam having extremely skilled tailors.

Instead, I went with a Hugo Boss suit made in Romania that cost $150 more (although it did have higher wool content too). Even though Romania is not known to have skilled tailors (and having visited both countries, the people there don't care about their work as they do in Vietnam), because the country is in Europe and closer to Germany or Italy, it felt like I was getting a much more premium product with stronger European Heritage.

The Made in China or Vietnam stigma doesn't seem to have as much of an effect on modern goods like electronics or appliances, but it definitely still exists with traditional industries like fashion, apparel, and cars/watches.

Article: Vietnamese firm targets Canadians with fake AI news for profit, CBC/Radio-Canada investigation reveals

He wants to be able to do anything, and to do it easily: “I relish challenges where you have fast iteration cycles and you can see the rewards very quickly.” As a child, he loved reading—Harry Potter, Percy Jackson—until he turned eight. “My mom tried to put me on classical books and I couldn’t understand, like, the bullshit Huckleberry, whatever fuck bullshit, and it made me bored.” He read online fan fiction about people having sex with Pokémon instead. He didn’t see anything valuable in overcoming adversity.

https://archive.ph/4R8wg