Latest news with #Taiwanese-American
New Paper
24-05-2025
- New Paper
Former S'pore basketball coach's wife, missing for 2 years, confirmed dead in Japan
After more than two years since she was last seen leaving a Nara guesthouse for a hiking trail in Japan, Ms Patricia Wu-Murad, wife of a former Singapore women's basketball coach, has been confirmed dead by her family. Her family received confirmation of her death on May 9, said her husband Kirk Murad. Pattie, as the Taiwanese-American woman was known to those close to her, was reported missing on April 10, 2023 after not showing up at another inn she had reserved. She had planned to stay there after her estimated seven- to eight-hour hike along the ancient Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route in Japan's southern Kansai region. A search for the 60-year-old retiree had involved dozens of search and rescue professionals from the US and Japan, local police, embassy officials and a personal intervention from US Senator for Connecticut Richard Blumenthal for local authorities to restart the search after initial efforts proved futile. Over the past two years, there were a couple of incremental discoveries, one of which led to a conclusive finding. Ms Wu-Murad's backpack and a hiking shoe were found by a local fisherman in a stream near another hiking trail in September 2024. In April 2025, a rescuer hired by the family found several of her personal items and what appeared to be a femur, or thigh bone, in the area where the backpack was found. Ms Patricia Wu-Murad's backpack was found by a person fishing in Totsukawa village near a stream in September 2024, around 18 months after she went missing. FACEBOOK/Help Find Pattie Checks compared the remains to their daughter's DNA and proved a match, said Mr Murad. "(The discovery) offers a measure of closure, but many questions remain unanswered, including the exact circumstances and cause of Pattie's death," wrote Mr Murad, who had led the Singapore basketball team at the 2017 SEA Games and was also a visiting lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic from 2000 to 2003, on Facebook. "We finally have time to grieve because we never really grieved her passing," he said. "It was just... always hoping that 0.1 per cent chance that she might still be alive." Now based in the United States, he thanked search and rescue team members who did not accept payment beyond their expenses. Initial search operations for Ms Wu-Murad in 2023 were conducted by their daughter Murphy Murad. The family raised more than US$200,000 (S$260,000) for the search. Based in Singapore, Ms Murad had been the family member living closest to Japan. After the latest of her mother's remains were found, she also returned to the Kansai region to tie up loose ends with the local authorities and rescuers. "Returning to Japan was equally nostalgic and heartbreaking," she wrote on Facebook. "Having the American SAR expert guide me through the terrain in which my mother's remains were found was empowering and helped paint a better picture of where it all went wrong." Ms Murad is general manager of Fastbreak Basketball Club, which conducts private training programmes in Singapore. She has also won the Women's National Basketball League playing for Siglap Basketball Club.
The Star
22-05-2025
- The Star
Missing for two years, wife of former Singapore basketball coach confirmed dead in Japan
Patricia Wu-Murad was confirmed dead on May 9, more than two years after she went missing during a solo hike in Japan. - HELP FIND PATTIE/FACEBOOK SINGAPORE: After more than two years since she was last seen leaving a Nara guesthouse for a hiking trail in Japan, Patricia Wu-Murad, wife of a former Singapore women's basketball coach, has been confirmed dead by her family. Her family received confirmation of her death on May 9, said her husband Kirk Murad. Pattie, as the Taiwanese-American woman was known to those close to her, was reported missing on April 10, 2023 after not showing up at another inn she had reserved. She had planned to stay there after her estimated seven- to eight-hour hike along the ancient Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route in Japan's southern Kansai region. A search for the 60-year-old retiree had involved dozens of search and rescue professionals from the US and Japan, local police, embassy officials and a personal intervention from US Senator for Connecticut Richard Blumenthal for local authorities to restart the search after initial efforts proved futile. Over the past two years, there were a couple of incremental discoveries, one of which led to a conclusive finding. Wu-Murad's backpack and a hiking shoe were found by a local fisherman in a stream near another hiking trail in September 2024. In April 2025, a rescuer hired by the family found several of her personal items and what appeared to be a femur, or thigh bone, in the area where the backpack was found. Checks compared the remains to their daughter's DNA and proved a match, said Murad. '(The discovery) offers a measure of closure, but many questions remain unanswered, including the exact circumstances and cause of Pattie's death,' wrote Murad, who had led the Singapore basketball team at the 2017 SEA Games and was also a visiting lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic from 2000 to 2003, on Facebook. 'We finally have time to grieve because we never really grieved her passing,' he said. 'It was just... always hoping that 0.1 per cent chance that she might still be alive.' Now based in the United States, he thanked search and rescue team members who did not accept payment beyond their expenses. Initial search operations for Wu-Murad in 2023 were conducted by their daughter Murphy Murad. The family raised more than US$200,000 for the search. Based in Singapore, Murphy had been the family member living closest to Japan. After the latest of her mother's remains were found, she also returned to the Kansai region to tie up loose ends with the local authorities and rescuers. 'Returning to Japan was equally nostalgic and heartbreaking,' she wrote on Facebook. 'Having the American SAR expert guide me through the terrain in which my mother's remains were found was empowering and helped paint a better picture of where it all went wrong.' Murphy is general manager of Fastbreak Basketball Club, which conducts private training programmes in Singapore. She has also won the Women's National Basketball League playing for Siglap Basketball Club. - The Straits Times/ANN
Straits Times
22-05-2025
- Straits Times
Missing for 2 years, wife of former S'pore basketball coach confirmed dead in Japan
Ms Patricia Wu-Murad was confirmed dead on May 9, more than two years after she went missing during a solo hike in Japan. PHOTO: HELP FIND PATTIE/FACEBOOK Missing for 2 years, wife of former S'pore basketball coach confirmed dead in Japan SINGAPORE - After more than two years since she was last seen leaving a Nara guesthouse for a hiking trail in Japan, Ms Patricia Wu-Murad, wife of a former Singapore women's basketball coach, has been confirmed dead by her family. Her family received confirmation of her death on May 9 , said her husband Kirk Murad. Pattie, as the Taiwanese-American woman was known to those close to her, was reported missing on April 10, 2023 after not showing up at another inn she had reserved. She had planned to stay there after her estimated seven- to eight-hour hike along the ancient Kumano Kodo pilgrimage route in Japan's southern Kansai region. A search for the 60-year-old retiree had involved dozens of search and rescue professionals from the US and Japan, local police, embassy officials and a personal intervention from US Senator for Connecticut Richard Blumenthal for local authorities to restart the search after initial efforts proved futile. Over the past two years, there were a couple of incremental discoveries, one of which led to a conclusive finding. Ms Wu-Murad's backpack and a hiking shoe were found by a local fisherman in a stream near another hiking trail in September 2024. In April 2025, a rescuer hired by the family found several of her personal items and what appeared to be a femur, or thigh bone, in the area where the backpack was found. Ms Patricia Wu-Murad's backpack was found by a person fishing in Totsukawa village near a stream in September 2024, around 18 months after she went missing. FACEBOOK/Help Find Pattie Checks compared the remains to their daughter's DNA and proved a match, said Mr Murad. '(The discovery) offers a measure of closure, but many questions remain unanswered, including the exact circumstances and cause of Pattie's death,' wrote Mr Murad, who had led the Singapore basketball team at the 2017 SEA Games and was also a visiting lecturer at Ngee Ann Polytechnic from 2000 to 2003, on Facebook. 'We finally have time to grieve because we never really grieved her passing,' he said. 'It was just... always hoping that 0.1 per cent chance that she might still be alive.' Now based in the United States, he thanked search and rescue team members who did not accept payment beyond their expenses. Initial search operations for Ms Wu-Murad in 2023 were conducted by their daughter Murphy Murad. The family raised more than US$200,000 (S$260,000) for the search. Based in Singapore, Ms Murad had been the family member living closest to Japan. After the latest of her mother's remains were found, she also returned to the Kansai region to tie up loose ends with the local authorities and rescuers. 'Returning to Japan was equally nostalgic and heartbreaking,' she wrote on Facebook. 'Having the American SAR expert guide me through the terrain in which my mother's remains were found was empowering and helped paint a better picture of where it all went wrong.' Ms Murad is general manager of Fastbreak Basketball Club, which conducts private training programmes in Singapore. She has also won the Women's National Basketball League playing for Siglap Basketball Club. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
New Statesman
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
The Wedding Banquet is a breath of fresh air
Photo by BFA / Luka Cyprian / Bleecker Street In Ang Lee's 1993 film The Wedding Banquet, the conflict centred around Wai-Tung, a closeted Taiwanese-American man, and his sham marriage to a woman. Fashioned as a screwball comedy but sharply, sensitively observed, it wrung laughter from the awkwardness of navigating cultural and inter-generational differences. With its elaborate central bacchanal and a running joke about Wai-Tung's live-in white boyfriend secretly cooking all the food, it was an international hit. But while its farcical elements remain timeless, today, its coming out narrative feels almost quaint. The legalisation of gay marriage, along with increased LGBT representation in pop culture, has created an opportunity to tell different, more complex queer stories. It's also an opportunity to make different jokes. In Korean-American director Andrew Ahn's deft remake, he doubles down on the original film's zany plot: in his Wedding Banquet, one half of a lesbian couple agrees to a straight marriage with the partner of her gay best friend. The film revolves around two long-term couples, Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) and Lee (Lily Gladstone), and their best friends Chris (Bowen Yang) and Min (Han Gi-Chan). Angela and Lee are struggling to have a baby following several unsuccessful rounds of expensive IVF. Min, a wealthy art student from Korea, needs to secure his visa or else move home and take over the family business. And Chris, a PhD student with commitment issues, won't marry him. 'I am not going to be responsible for you losing your money or being disowned by your family,' he insists. So Min suggests a workaround: he will pay for his friends' IVF in exchange for a green card marriage. But when his grandmother Ja-Young (Minari's Youn Yuh-jung) gets wind that he's engaged, she arrives in Seattle and insists on a big Korean wedding. Director Ahn and writer James Schamus (who co-wrote the original film) move the story from Nineties Manhattan to present day Seattle, updating the source material in various, amusing ways. The 1993 film took gentle jabs at yuppie culture, with an estate agent protagonist who spent all his free time at the gym. Ahn lovingly teases his own cohort; his hipster millennial ensemble include an aspiring artist with a 10-step skincare routine, a community organizer at a queer nonprofit, a literature student-turned-birdwatching guide, and my favourite, a researcher in a worm lab. The one-liners are all sharp elbows; 'Queer theory takes the joy out of being gay,' deadpans Chris of his lapsed PhD. Yet when it comes to the supporting characters, Ahn refuses to trade in stereotypes for the sake of a gag. Min's formidable, no-nonsense grandmother is portrayed as intelligent rather than simply 'wise' while Angela's glamorous, domineering mother May (a very funny and charming Joan Chen) is not only accepting of her daughter's queerness, but an ally, glowing and sparkling with pride. 'My own daughter, marrying a man!' she gasps when she hears her news. Angela, of course, finds her 'triggering.' Romantic comedies often focus on courtship rather than commitment, which is perhaps why films like this one, along with Tina Fey's recent TV remake of Alan Alda's The Four Seasons, feels like a breath of fresh air. The Four Seasons questions if romance and domesticity can coexist, through the prism of three middle-aged married couples. Similarly, in The Wedding Banquet, though the characters express interest in the rituals of marriage and becoming parents, there's an unwillingness to buy into those institutions wholesale. Tellingly, the film's big drunken set piece takes place at Angela's hen do, not the wedding. Mostly, the film is lighthearted and fun, which is why it wobbles a little when trying to find its balance. Ahn treats the theme of a chosen family with earnest, weary seriousness, but the grounded dramatic performances can jar with the zippier jokes. Gladstone (Killers of the Flower Moon) is a dab hand with both, but a sombre, too-realistic confrontation between her and Tran's Angela feels like it belongs in a different movie. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe 'The Wedding Banquet' is in cinemas now Related
Hindustan Times
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Woman writes novel to say goodbye to her ‘dead mother'. Then this happens
Author Stefany Valentine lost all hopes of meeting her mother after not having any contact with her for 25 years and even feared that she had died. But on New Year's eve of 2023, a call from her sister-in-law changed her life. For the first time, in over two decades, in August 2024, Stefany came face-to-face with her mother Meiling Valentine. Speaking to Stefany said she wondered whether she would be able to recognise her mother in the crowd after all these years and safe to say, she added, "I did." "It was just so good to hug her for the first time. I needed that hug," the author said. At the time of Stefany's reunion with her mother at the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, the author was working on her debut novel called 'First Love Language'. Her novel is based on Catie, a Taiwanese-American teen and adoptee, who looks to reconnect with her origin roots by learning Mandarin. A 31-year-old Stefany said that she used the novel, in some ways, "to really say goodbye, to close the door" on finding her birth mother. Meiling was married to Lt. Col. Todd Merrill Valentine and had five children with him. The family used to move around a lot because of Todd's career in the Air Force, spending time in Texas (where Stefany was born), Taiwan and South Dakota. When Stefany was five-years-old, her parents got a divorce and all the kids went into Todd's custody. Their father moved them back to the States and their mother, Meiling, who did not speak any English, was cut of their lives. When Meiling lost ties to her children, she told "I almost collapsed." She said that the language barrier, lack of money and work experience, did not help in being able to find solution. "It was unfair treatment." Despite all these years, Stefany notes that her mother did not have the resources that her dad did even though she tries to maintain a "neutral" stance on their relation. Stefany said that she was made to believe that Meiling was "dangerous" and "neglected" her children. However, she said, that was another cultural divide as she didn't feel neglected in Taiwan. The author recalls that her and her siblings left behind their Taiwanese culture in America. "It was 'Go to school, speak English, assimilate, we're not doing that that anymore. And I think that was that. Losing a mother is one thing, and then losing your culture," she told While Stefany initially struggled to get a hold on English, her escape methods eventually led her to a writing career. When Stefany turned 8, Todd remarried. Her stepmother, Cindy, brought into the family her four children from a previous relationship. Cindy became a single mother to nine children when Stefany's father passed away in 2006. But the loss led the author to struggle with depression. Stefany said that growing into her teenage years, the rage from the loss of her father and her birth mother's absence, only increased. She was reportedly sent to live with other family members throughout majority of her high school years by Cindy. She was allowed to move back in her senior year. While looking for answers about Meiling, Stefany sought refuge in writing. She wrote a short story for the young-adult anthology, 'When We Become Ours', which points at the adoptee experience. The experience from this work led her to rework her first novel, First Love Language, into a more adoptee-focused piece. She looked historical and genealogical records in her attempts to find Meiling. But several psychichs indicated that Meiling had died, leading to Stefany putting an end to her search. On New Year's 2023, she got a surprising call. "My sister-in-law calls me and is like 'There is a Taiwanese lady in our Mormon church, and she grew up with your mom, and she's going to find her for you'." Initially, Stefany and her siblings were able to reconnect with Meiling via texting and though her siblings were not as much open to the idea of reunion, Cindy facilitated the author's trip to Taiwan. The author said that since Cindy worked with Delta, she was able to provide her with flight and everything. The day finally came in August, Stefany and Meiling were reunited. In the lead up to their first meeting at the encounter, Stefany said, "Nervous, anxious, scared, excited, everything — what wasn't I feeling? It was like Christmas, when you're going to bed and you're like, 'I'm going to get to open the presents tomorrow?' It was very much that for weeks leading up to it, just like, 'One day closer. One day closer.'" The mother-daughter realized how much similar they looked. The two made up for their long-lost time during Stefany's two-week trip to Taiwan last year. Stefany and Meiling went hiking, visited street markets, spent night in an aquarium and even celebrated the latter's birthday with a cake. 'She was like, 'This is the best birthday I've had in 20 years,'" Stefany said. During the second week, Cindy also visited Stefany and Meiling in Taiwan. The birth mother and the stepmother thanked each other for Stefany. Stefany's Taiwan visit also sparked her desire to learn Mandarin. She has applied for the local Chung Yuan University, where she is all set to start the term in the fall. The author said that with the help of her studies, she wants to facilitate reunions between her mother and the other siblings, and to eventually tell Meiling's story. "I want to write a memoir, for sure. But this memoir, I want it to also be her memoir and I want to be able to tell her story and all the complexities of it as well as I can in addition to writing my story," Stefany told Stefany said that now she does not want to waste any more time.
