Latest news with #Zhen
Chicago Tribune
07-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Octogenarian busker brings bold, brassy sounds and culture to Chinatown
With a slight inhale, 81-year-old Zhen Jinling brought the short, ridged horn up to his mouth. He pursed his lips and blew into his suona — the sound part birdcall, part trumpet fanfare. From a bench outside Chinatown's library branch, the chirpy melody and fast descending riffs of 'Whipping the Horse that Transports Grain,' a Chinese folk song composed in the 20th century, buzzed across the street to the nearby CTA station. Since 2022, Zhen has spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons busking outside Wentworth and Archer avenues. Rotating between several instruments, Zhen shares a taste of traditional Chinese music with locals and visitors alike. '(I) entertain the community, entertain myself,' Zhen said last month in Mandarin Chinese. Zhen, originally from Taishan in Guangdong province, said he came to the U.S. at least 15 years ago. He often played in Chinese opera and folk music companies in Chicago, New York and other areas, focusing on Cantonese opera music, he said. 'Private opera companies don't have much money,' he said. 'I've spent my life learning music — giving myself to it.' Zhen set down his suona and put his erhu, a type of Chinese violin, in his lap. As he drew the bow along the upright strings, a mellower tone floated into the air. It's nowhere near as loud as the suona, but turned heads nonetheless. A young man and woman stopped to watch Zhen play. 'May I see it?' The woman asked Zhen in English after he paused, gesturing to the erhu. He scooted over to let her sit downand handed her the instrument. Zhen guided her right hand as she pulled the bow back and forth, the sound shifting from an initial croak to something more sonorous. After about a minute, the impromptu lesson concluded and the woman stood up. Zhen pointed to a cup in front of his instrument cases. 'Yi kuai qian (one dollar),' he said. She didn't seem to understand his words exactly, but dropped in a bill anyway. Zhen started learning music when he was 15, he said. Much of his training came in the Chinese military, where he also performed, he added. Over the years, he's learned ways to save money while playing music. While suona reeds are traditionally plant-based, Zhen flattens segments of plastic straws to fit into his mouthpiece. He keeps extras in a small tin, and it's 'all about habit,' he said. Zhen plays the jinghu and gehu, two bowed, upright string instruments that are in the same family as the erhu. He's also started learning Western instruments in the past few years, collecting violins, saxophones and guitars, he said. 'If other people can, I have to be able to play as well,' Zhen said of learning different instruments. 'If I can't, it's a little embarrassing.' At his age, though, the effort Zhen puts into learning new instruments varies. On the violin, he's a 'lazy' learner — his neck can't take the strain from playing for too long, he said. Yunlong Zhang, who goes by John Lone, is a recent music school graduate. He said he admires Zhen for his depth of musical knowledge and commitment to performing despite the limited financial gain. Lone, who moved to the U.S. from China for school, also said he was glad to hear the suona and erhu — 'Chinese sound' — in Chicago. When two women told Lone one afternoon he should fall back on information technology or computer science in case music doesn't work out as a career path, he said Zhen chimed in. 'He said, 'You shouldn't tell him this, you'll impact him. You have to respect his personal decisions,'' Lone said in Mandarin Chinese. 'His personality is pretty interesting.' After a weekend of thunderstorms and other severe weather, Zhen was back to busking July 27. His performance coincided with the Chinatown Summer Fair, which saw increased foot traffic in the area — and past the corner where he plays. Hearing Zhen play was 'really captivating,' said University of Illinois Chicago student Nabharun Bhattacharya. He had seen social media posts of buskers in Chinatown, but this was his first in-person experience, Bhattacharya added. 'A movie without background music is just frames passing through your eyes, right? Similarly, if there's good music and ambience, it heightens the whole experience,' Bhattacharya said. Eric and Jennifer Burpee, a married couple who went to Chinatown after church earlier in the day, also stopped by Zhen's post to listen and donate money. The couple also played instruments growing up — Jennifer Burpee learned clarinet and Eric Burpee the trumpet. They said Zhen played 'confidently,' and Jennifer Burpee recognized much of his music as built on the pentatonic, or five-tone, scale. 'I'm pretty awestruck that he can play three instruments,' Jennifer Burpee said. Jennifer Burpee is part Chinese and grew up in Bridgeport. While she frequently visited Chinatown when she was younger, Burpee didn't recall seeing street performers around the neighborhood. Now, in part because of more frequent organized cultural performances in the area, Burpee said she hears more buskers on the streets, including those playing traditional Chinese music. She and her husband hope there are more buskers around the neighborhood and city. Public performances add to the 'culture and experience of the city and Chicago as a whole,' Eric Burpee said. The third instrument in Zhen's rotation was the xiao, a Chinese flute made of bamboo. Holding it sideways, he played a wistful tune, the tone soft and almost hoarse. 'My strength no longer matches my heart,' Zhen said. 'I'm out of breath now.' Still, Zhen said he doesn't plan on stopping his street performances any time soon. His hope? 'That people hear my music and are happy,' Zhen said.
Mint
05-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
Friends Accused of Trading on Data for Edgar Face Widening Probe
(Bloomberg) -- The FBI had to move fast when agents learned that two men who were the focus on an insider trading investigation were about to get on a flight to Hong Kong. Before they could board the early morning June 28 flight, federal agents arrested Justin Chen, 31, and Jun Zhen, 29. Prosecutors say they pocketed at least $1 million by taking information they learned from their job at a private company that formats materials before they are submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission's Edgar filing system. At a pair of court hearings, prosecutors said that they were aware of at least four companies where the two men allegedly made trades based on non-public information. But officials were investigating whether Chen and Zhen traded in at least six more companies when they were arrested, hours before getting on the Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong. 'We probably wouldn't have arrested the defendants at this point as the investigation is ongoing,' Nicholas Axelrod, an assistant US attorney, said at one of the hearings. 'If not for that travel.' The arrests spotlight ongoing problems with how confidential information can be obtained by insiders before it's publicly released on the Edgar database, the SEC's online portal for more than 30 years. In 2021, the SEC brought enforcement cases against several people who they accused of hacking into third-party companies that dealt with Edgar system. Chen was an Edgar assistant manager and Zhen was a typeset assistant manager at New York-based Companies like EdgarAgents help prepare company filings before they are sent to the Edgar system and distributed to the public. Between March and June 2025, prosecutors say the two obtained material, nonpublic information ahead of announcements like mergers 'that resulted in significant increases in the share price of each company's stock.' 'This was an incredibly brazen scheme,'Axelrod told a federal magistrate in Brooklyn, New York, on Monday. 'They traded on the information and they traded aggressively.' Lawyers for both men declined to comment on the charges. Neither man has entered a plea at this point in the proceedings. Chen, who prosecutors say made $100,000 a year, had worked at the company since 2020 and had been working at firms that handled Edgar data since 2012, according to his LinkedIn profile. His sister also worked at the company. Prosecutors say that the two men had accessed proposed filings on at least four companies before the information was public; Ondas Holdings Inc., Purple Innovation Inc., Signing Day Sports Inc. and SigmaTron International Inc. In one example, prosecutors say Chen and Zhen both bought tens of thousands of shares of Ondas Holdings just before the company released an SEC 8-K form disclosing that it had entered into a strategic partnership with Palantir, a multibillion-provider of artificial intelligence service. They made about $36,749 in the 24-hour period before and after the announcement. EdgarAgents Chief Executive Officer Stephen Bonventre said the company was cooperating with the US investigation and that both men were no longer with the company. 'The alleged activities run completely counter to our company values and the integrity with which we've built our business,' he said in a statement. The SEC declined to comment on the case, though Axelrod said in court that the agency told prosecutors they detected suspicious trading in other companies, which is now part of the government's ongoing criminal investigation. At the two court hearings following their arrests, Axelrod portrayed Chen and Zhen as two men on the brink of fleeing the country who shouldn't be given bail while the case proceeds. He pointed to a text Chen sent Zhen: 'We gotta get out quick.' During the hearing on Monday, however, Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo was skeptical of Axelrod's argument that Chen's 'we gotta get out quick' message meant the two men were going to flee. Kuo said that Chen may have meant he needed to 'get out' of his trading position rather than getting out of the US. 'I read that as in a flight context,' Axelrod said. 'It's the government's concern the defendant could flee.' He cited another text from Chen to Zhen as evidence they had been planning to escape. 'Give me 2 months to get as much as possible,' the text read, according to Axelrod. Chen's lawyer, Charles Millioen, sought to have his client released, arguing that since his passport had been taken, he couldn't leave the US anyway. At an initial hearing last week, Zhen's lawyer, Chris Wright, also said his client wasn't a flight risk. 'He has every reason to stay in the United States,' Wright said. 'His family is here. He's not a citizen of China, he is an American citizen.' Chen's mother wept on Monday as her son sat stoically listening to the government's allegations. She and Chen's sister, who called in for the bail hearing, agreed to post $10,000 in cash to win his release. Kuo said that Chen could be released on a $1 million bond, guaranteed by his mother and sister. 'Hopefully, that is enough to keep Mr. Chen in the district,' Kuo said. Chen was released Tuesday. Zhen, whose bail was set at $500,000, remains in custody as of Saturday morning, according to federal Bureau of Prisons records. More stories like this are available on
