>> i'm nydia han. tonight/saturday on visions 2017. we'll take you to chinatown's new mecca for dining visit a garden that connects vietnamese to their roots meet the new assistant conductor of the philadelphia orchestra. and high school students who've written a text book on race. plus, a chinese olympian opens a fencing club. and we sample authentic dumplings and pho. >> hi everyone and welcome to visions 2017, our celebration of asian and pacific islander history and culture. we are at franklin square, which has been completely transformed for the chinese lantern festival, a chinese new year's tradition that dates back thousands of years. we'll take you on a tour in just a few minutes but first we head just a few blocks west of here to a new spot called chinatown square. >> friends and business partners david tang and kenny poon created chinatown's new

eclectic hot-spot. >> chinatown square is a contemporary food hall. with about 14 vendors in one building. >> this dynamic duo turned into a hip 2-story food and entertainment sensation. >> we travel a lot. >> we wanted to open something with all our favorite food in one spot only >> entertainment, food, alcohol, bar everything in one. >> they wanted to celebrate their cultural heritage when choosing the eateries. >> i'm born in china and when i was 4, i moved to hong kong and when i was 14, i moved to philadelphia. >> i am chinese from cambodia >> food vendors they chose offer a diverse mix of asian pacific flavors like coreanos. >> we do a korean-mexican concept. >> all the tacos have korean influence to them. >> this restaurant is curry corner. the southeast asian curry covers malaysian, thai, indian, indonesian and vietnam. >> philly poke is a hawaiian and sushi. poke is a hawaiian fish salad. >> this is khmer grill. and we are the first cambodian

restaurant in chinatown so i hope a lot of people will come >> a chinese fusion concept, the bao bar, serves chinese soft buns filled with meats. >> we got haiku japanese street food we serve sake and all the japanese whiskey in pennsylvania. they throw a little mediterranean fare into the mix with halal guys. >> mediterranean fare into the mix with halal guys. >> it's smoking the chicken piling it on the platter and you get a white sauce on top. >> plus, they house the original brand of thai rolled ice cream ic ny. the 2nd floor boasts a wine shop a full service korean restaurant and karaoke! >> a lot of people love karaoke >> or you can just chill and dance in the lounge. >> everyone's reaction here when they come in they're surprised. philadelphia needed it. chinatown needed it. >> chinatown square closes at 2am on weekdays 4am on weekends, but the plan is to eventually be open around the clock. >> next, christie ileto takes

us across the river to camden where a vietnamese garden is helping elder refugees stay connected to their homeland while also teaching the young generation about their roots. >> lan dinh graduated from penn but was born in a refugee camp. she now manages this half acre, block long garden for other vietnamese refugees in east camden. >> a part of creating home is growing food, is having access to the food they're used to eating at home. >> drong pham is growing vietnamese squash, vegetables and thai basil in the garden. >> my family, and other vietnamese families like vietnamese food, especially vegetables. >> after school and in the summer, the elders are joined by high school students who learn about gardening and much more. >> it kind of reminds them of their own family working with people who are the same age as their mothers and grandmothers >> it's a really great way for our students to have conversations in our community and really feel they are giving back. >> the garden is run by viet

lead a grass roots non-profit working to unite the vietnamese community in philadelphia and south jersey. the city of camden donated the land and some supplies the garden's volunteers scavenged for the rest. >> we had a bunch of logs, and we asked the students, 'what can we make with this?' >> using found objects to build beds and trellises. >> don't waste a single thing,' is what the elders taught us >> this is the refugee style of growing, which means you grow with what you have. >> the melons, lettuce, bok choy, herbs and peppers are the healthy bounty from this patch of green in camden, but the intergenerational love and respect is the real reward. >> there's definitely a bond between the young and the old because the elders love teaching. >> seeing a seed sprouting into a plant. it basically brings together community. >> resilient roots community farm also has a summer internship program for camden high school students. >> our next story features a refugee from laos, a poet living in south philadelphia whose work has been featured on the national stage. and she's using her art to

unite and heal the laotian american community . >> you bring out the laos in the house. >> spoken word has given catzie vilaphoung a voice. >> there wasn't a prominent southeast asian voice. >> i started doing poems not just about being asian but um just about being laos. >> it's also given the laos native an audience. >> a lot of laos people um they sort of felt like oh there's somebody like me talking about our experiences i totally know what you're saying. >> she was featured on def poetry jams in 2002 and as audiences grew so did her questions about where she came from. >> i would say i'm from laos and people be like what where is that i just kind of made a proactive effort to seek out other laos people. >> not the southeast asian, not the indochina, not the lay-ose, or the lay-aas, but the laos in the house. >> catzie was born in a refugee camp in laos, her parents forced from their home in a war torn country. >> they didn't want to pass on the trauma of war to me so they didn't tell me about it. >> but she is taking a different approach with her daughter. embracing where she's from and seeking out others to share that history. >> i learned that people want

to share their stories but they're not really sure how. >> so she created a website called laos in the house. >> a project that promotes storytelling in the lao american refugee community through the mediums of art. >> she collects stories across the nation featuring lao refugees and immigrants. >> i wanted to find a way to teach about the history of how laos americans came to be but in way that was like a community effort. >> the stories are featured on the website, creating a home that brings attention and appreciation for the laos community. >> i like hearing how different people's experiences were >> because we didn't have it growing up so who knows 10 years from now maybe there's a museum you know maybe we do get a page in a history book >> in sharing these stories i feel like more positive will come out of it. >> catzie has partnered with the philadelphia museum of art and its civic engagement exhibition philadelphia assembled and she'll have a booth, traveling around the city this summer, inviting folks to share their stories. >> well, the local tibetan buddhist community now has a place to call home for the first time ever.

the new tibetan buddhist center of philadelphia on the 900 block of north marshall street is open to buddhists and non-buddhists alike with sunday morning group meditation sessions and classes on a wide variety of buddhist topics. you can find the link to the full calendar at 6abc dot com slash visions. >> now, as promised, it's time to take a look around franklin square and learn about these larger-than-life lanterns that are lighting up every evening here. >> the chinese lantern festival is a nearly 2,000 year old tradition and, in china, a national holiday that's celebrated on the last day of the chinese new year >> philadelphia is a city full of cultural importance. so we want to see the chemistry between the two different cultures. >> the festival is produced by tianyu arts & culture and every night, as the sun sets on franklin square, the park lights up. >> in the evening the lanterns take on a life of their own. they glow, some of them move >> it's not the ordinary things that everybody can do. >> the lanterns were assembled and hand painted by a team of

30 specially trained artisans >> our designers will shape the outline of the lanterns on the ground by hand and then we have people to cover the outline with the fabric. >> this year, they designed 29 brand new lantern displays >> we have chinese zodiac signs, we have mythological creatures, we have dragon columns, we have flowers around our beautiful fountain. >> and the festival's centerpiece is a 200 foot long, 3 story high chinese dragon! >> lots of people see him coming over the ben franklin bridge, you really can't miss him. >> along with the illuminating lights, tianyu is also brought in chinese artists. >> we have contortionist and the uh plate spinning. acrobatic performance and folk dances. >> it's a really great opportunity, not only for franklin square but for chinatown and the surrounding area. >> the chinese lantern festival is open every evening through june 11th. and we're giving away tickets! you can find the link to enter for a chance to win on the contest page of 6abc dot com.

>> when our special visions 2017 comes right back. >> we meet the new assistant conductor of the philadelphia orchestra. >> and we'll take you to a new jersey fencing club just opened by a chinese olympic medalist.

>> welcome back to visions 2017 and franklin square, host of the chinese lantern festival. >> it was in 1978 that congress passed a resolution to celebrate americans of asian and pacific islander heritage. and they chose the month of may to mark the arrival of the first japanese immigrants in may of 1843. now the u-s census says, more than 20 million asians call america home. among them kensho watanabe, born in japan and recently named assistant conductor of the philadelphia orchestra. >> for kensho watanabe, landing the position of assistant conductor with the philadelphia orchestra is a dream. >> i just cant' think of a better place to start my

career as a conductor. >> it's a job he's been preparing for nearly all of his 30 years. >> really my earliest memories are from playing the violin >> by age 9, he was spending every saturday in julliard's pre-college division. >> i loved it and i wanted to immerse myself in it. >> but he had no intention of making a career of it. he wanted his life's work to honor his grandfather. >> i lost him to colon cancer when i was 5 just after we moved to the states. from there, i thought i wanted to be a doctor. >> he stayed on that path even as he went to yale, joined the symphony and started conducting even as he earned his masters in violin. >> just to kind of tie it off and say you know this is my accomplishment in music and now i can move on to medicine >> he took his mcats, but also entered the master conductor program at the curtis institute of music. when he applied to med school, the light bulb finally went off. >> i was writing my personal statement about why i wanted to be a doctor and i just had this moment where i said this is actually not what i was

meant to do. >> music had always been his passion now it would be his purpose. he stayed at curtis for a 2 year conducting fellowship with music director yannick nézet-seguin. and now, as yannick's assistant conductor, he serves as an understudy. >> they say you never know just be ready and you kind of just laugh it off like yeah, yeah i'm, ready but it's not going to happen. >> but, last month, it did yannick got sick and kensho had just a few hours to mentally prepare. >> this is a monumental task to ask a young conductor to step in front of the philadelphia orchestra, not just any orchestra, the philadelphia orchestra. >> but kensho rose to the challenge and created a memory that will last a lifetime. >> when kensho's parents learned he'd be stepping in for yannick, they hopped in their car and hightailed it to the kimmel center, a 3 hour drive from their home in connecticut.

and after the concert, they got in the car and headed right back home that's supportive parents. >> christie ileto has our next story, an olympic medaling fencer from china who just opened a club in new jersey with a mission of developing elite fencers here in the u-s. >> lei wang beat the odds when he became china's first men's fencing olympic medalist in 2004 after competing in his first ever olympics competition. >> i trained since i was a child. to to win this you know to be able to do something no one has ever done before you know that was amazing. >> he opened wanglei international fencing club just two months ago with a goal of providing a different training experience than he received growing up. >> when i learned fencing i trained, i focused primarily

on fencing and there was not a lot of education, and i want to be able to have children learn how to fence, but also be able to get a good education. >> his staff consists of highly skilled coaches from the university of penn, notre dame, and a junior national coach from china. >> and they each specialize in a different area of fencing foil, epee and sabre >> the three different weapons will bring out different strengths of of the fencers. >> each weapon has a different target area and defense mechanism, but the technique remains the same. >> 90% is in the mind and only 10% in physical training. it's almost like physical chess. >> his summer camps start july 9th. >> and of course, all eyes are on the korean peninsula, these days as north korea continues to threaten with its missile and nuclear weapons programs and south korea has a new president moon jae-in tasked with restoring the stagnant economy and the country's faith in government after his predecessor park geun-hye was impeached and jailed on corruption charges.

>> when visions 20-17 comes right back. >> a college president with a hot sauce recipe that's raising cool cash for student scholarships. >> and they're still in high school but already they've written a text book that's being used in classrooms.

>> welcome back to visions 2017 and the chinese lantern festival at franklin square. in deciding to celebrate asian and pacific islander heritage, congress used a broad brush that may challenge your view of what it means to be asian. the commemorative month covers more than a dozen islands in the pacific and all of asia, a vast continent that stretches from russia to the middle east, which is where rowan university's president was born and raised and as christie ileto tells us that upbringing fuels his passion for education in ways you might not predict. >> these ones, bbh - big bloody habaneros. >> rowan univeristy president

dr. ali houshmand has been making his famous houshmand's hot sauce for many years. >> some have what i call volume and neat and some have heat - this is habaneros. >> houshmand donates all the money he makes from selling these jars to raise scholarship funds for his students. >> it gives it that amazing aroma. >> a cause dear to the president. >> so, for me it's really seriously personal because i see in these kids me, if i had gone in the wrong direction. >> houshmand was born and raised in iran during the 1960's and 70's. >> i come from a very very poor background myself, from very poor families where we would go to bed hungry sometimes. >> he says education was his path out of poverty. >> my first job was i worked in kentucky fried chicken and that's how i got my education. i paid for it myself. >> while he made a career in academia, food and specifically his peppers remain a passion. >> every day, i come in here and i check on these things. >> he grows over 400 plants in this oncampus greenhouse. >> this is called purple

jalapenos look at this one, hot carolina reaper. this can kill somebody. >> planting seeds for a hot sauce that helps his students grow.that is wonderful. >> education is the key >> education is the key and a pair of princeton high school students are working to educate the nation on the subject of racism. >> this is the classroom index. >> it's a 224 page textbook on race being used in 22 states. >> it's a collection of hundreds of stories that we're hoping to bring to classrooms nationwide. >> a book compiled by priya vulchi & winona guo 17 year old seniors at princeton high school. >> hi. >> they call their project princeton choose and they're asking their fellow citizens to choose to engage in the topic of race. >> what do you think it's like to live and maybe grow up in a town that's predominantly white? >> the stories they've

gathered come from as far as south africa as near as their own hometown. >> one student from our own high school was talking about her experiences as a black female taught white is right. >> this one is from a man talking about his experience crossing the border. >> in creating the book, they collaborated with teachers and administrators in the princeton schools. and alongside every anecdote, you'll find the statistics. >> so say we interviewed someone on the street and they're talking about their own personal experience with police brutality right? we would back up their story with research to show it's a systemic issue. >> priya is a first generation american from india winona's parents came to the us from china and their american dream is big. >> we want every single k-12 classroom in the united states to be engaging in these really effective conversations about race. >> and they want their textbook to become the leading tool for social justice education. >> the main motto of the book is to change the hearts and minds of students. >> priya has been accepted to princeton winona is going to harvard, but first they're

taking a gap year to travel around the country, collecting more testimonies. >> the stories are going to be from every single state >> and they'll be used to create a 2nd edition of the book hopefully crowdfunded through gofundme. >> as far as we can see right now, choose is truly lifelong work for us. >> their goal is not to create a colorblind melting pot but a salad bowl where everyone lives in harmony. >> right now it's hard to see it happening anytime soon but it's not going to get closer if we don't' start working towards it. >> pretty inspiring stuff, huh? >> and the asian american journalist's association is coming to philadelphia, july 26th through the 29th. the annual convention brings together journalists, community leaders and media innovators to tackle racism in news coverage and on the job. >> when visions 2017 comes right back. we try some authentic chinese dumplings and some of the city's best vietnamese pho.

>> welcome back to visions 2017 and now it's time to eat. food is often the best bridge between cultures and a way for families to maintain those familiar flavors from home. we start with a chinese american making her grandma's dumplings. >> i call these dumplings my little soldiers. >> for rebecca jordan, making dumplings brings back her fondest childhood memories growing up in china. >> when my dad came home from military just spend whole weekend, make all the dumplings all kinds, with the broth, without the broth, pan fried, cold, lunch, dinner >> she came to the u-s 18 years ago for college and stayed, but really missed that taste of home. >> you just crave for you know traditional chinese meal. you can't find it anywhere. >> so she asked her mom to share the recipe that had been passed down from her grandmother. >> she said are you crazy? you work every day. you're training martial arts. it's just too much work. >> but she started practicing pinching her paper thin dough around a mix of pork, spinach, eggs and spices until she'd perfected her grandmother's recipe. >> people from work asked me to make them for their

parties, for their families on the weekends. and everybody loved it >> including her mother. >> you know what she told me? oh my god, girl, what did you do? she said this is better than mine. >> so rebecca decided to turn her little piece of chinese culture into a business >> every time i make dumpling, i think of my mom and dad and to me its the best dumplings in the whole wide world, laughs. >> you can head to our website to find out where to buy those dumplings if you're looking for authentic vietnamese, christie found a chef in kensington who's perfected the art of pho. >> tucked under the el on kensington avenue, there's a little piece of pho paradise. >> we're family owned and operated establishment here in kensington. thang lo pho. >> they specialize in traditional, northern vietnamese noodle soups. >> this is ribeye steak. >> and the beef pho is their number one seller. >> the meat is cooking right now as you see. >> the broth infuses with the meat while it steeps. >> so, you have a nice burst of flavor. >> and a mix of herbs. >> you grab some fresh basil break it up a little bit, bean sprouts. >> the recipe was perfected by

the family's matriarch chef dung tran. >> my mother went back to vietnam, and really just took her time to research different types of recipes. >> she's all about the time involved and not taking shortcuts. >> dung tran got the recipe from her mother. >> she's speaking upon my grandmother, the recipes, and studying the art of making such a painstaking product. >> the process is a labor of love. >> different cuts of bone marrows infused with ginger and ginseng. >> it's similar to american chicken noodle soup. >> it's comfort food, you know. >> but steeped in the family history and culture of their vietnamese homeland. >> boom. there you go >> a delicious way to end the show. >> our thanks to franklin square and the chinese lantern festival for hosting our celebration of asian pacific american history and culture. >> don't forget the festival is every evening starting at 6 through june 11th. you can find details on that and all of the people and places we featured on the visions page of 6abc dot com. thanks for watching and good night everyone.