Kaitlyn Chen Wins with UConn, JD Vance Insults 1.4 Billion Chinese
By Romen Basu Borsellino | 10 Apr, 2025

Jonny Kim Wows Asian Moms, Diljit Dosanjh Breaks Internet with Will Smith

Vice President JD Vance, who has feuded with Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelensky, the nation of Greenland, and America’s “childless cat ladies”, is now taking aim at China. In an interview with Fox News this past week, Vance decried the US knack for borrowing money from “Chinese peasants” to buy things made by “Chinese peasants”.  

A spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry referred to Vance’s comments as “ignorant and impolite.” China’s response may seem harsh but they could have gone a step further and asked for the $750 billion we owe them. 

The UConn Huskies won the NCAA Division I Women’s National Basketball Tournament this past week.  Coverage focused on star Paige Beucker but teammate Kaitlyn Chen made history as the first Taiwanese American to win the championship.  This after she had already made history in 2023 by winning the Ivy League championship with Princeton.

Chen’s numbers in the NCAA championship game were among her lowest of the season — 2 points, 1 rebound and 4 assists — but spoke to the depth of UCONN’s roster. Chen opted to be a small fish in a big pond at UCONN after her eligibility ran out at Princeton where she was third in career assists, twelfth in career points and was named the 2023 Ivy League Player of the Year. 

Chen has taken full advantage of her champion status since Sunday’s win: she and two teammates were spotted partying with music superstar Alicia Keys and Keys’ husband producer Swizz Beats in New York on Wednesday night. Should Chen go on to play in the WNBA, she would become the 20th player of Asian descent to join the league.

Astronaut Jonny Kim has officially become the first Korean-American to fly to space. On Tuesday, April 8, Kim and two Russian cosmonauts blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, a Russian-operated spaceport in Kazakhstan. The mission, conducted in Russian, required Kim to add fluency in another language to his already pages-long resume, including NAVY seal, Harvard-educated doctor, and Iraq veteran. Jonny Kim might be the most accomplished person on the planet today…if he were on the planet. 

Kim and his Russian crewmates docked at the International Space Station where they were welcomed by several other astronauts.  These ISS missions typically last six months, but Kim, always the overachiever, will be up there for eight as part of a study of the longer-terms effects of living in space. That is, assuming there will still be a planet to come back to in eight months.

Indian music superstar and actor Diljit Dosanjh, a turbaned Punjabi Sikh, teamed up this past week with Will Smith, who some might consider his American counterpart, to break the internet (or at least leave a palm print). The two posted an Instagram video of them dancing and laughing to bhangra, a vibrant, pop-y, drum heavy genre of music from Dosanjh’s native Punjab. The video has already amassed over 35 million views in just 5 days.  To put the number in perspective, it’s equal to about 2.5% of India’s population…although I’m personally responsible for at last 2 million of those views. 

And, finally, rice may be the new eggs. Japan is facing a major rice shortage as a result of a recent heat wave, an earthquake, supply chain issues, and high tourist consumption. As rice prices skyrocket,the Japanese government has been forced to tap its strategic rice reserves, which it has only done a couple of times since they were established in 1995. 

This isn’t expected to affect the US so no need to worry about the yellowtail becoming the least expensive part of your Nobu nigiri. However, we may not be so lucky when it comes to the price of basmati rice at Indian restaurants in the US should President Trump make good on his pledge to bring back 26% tariffs against India in 90 days.