What would the world look like if at least part of your daily diet of news came from the ethnic media -- which now has more readers than the mainstream press in some California metropolitan regions? PNS, in collaboration with members of the New California Media network of ethnic media organizations, regularly digests news and commentary from this rapidly growing but largely invisible segment of the news media. This digest focuses exclusively on news and opinions drawn from the press serving East and South Asian communities.

MANILA IS TALKING ABOUT HOW NOT TO TAKE A BATH

Filipinos -- long famous for their love of bathing (three times a day, according to accounts by early Spanish explorers) -- are suffering a drought brought on by El Nino. Metropolitan Manila's daily water supply is down by 28 percent. Some mayors are blaming the government, which stopped building dams, but now authorities, including President Ramos, have turned to lecturing people on taking fewer and cheaper baths. Ramos has recommended the "tabo" bath -- pouring a plastic tumbler of water over one's body -- has met with cries of protest. The tabo, complains one columnist, doesn't take the place of a dam.

- Manila Mail (San Francisco)

FILIPINO WW II VETS PUSH FOR BENEFITS 60 YEARS LATER

Filipino American veterans of World War II say that with five of their number dying every day, they can't afford to wait any longer: they want President Clinton to include a budget line item for their benefits in his 1998 budget request to Congress. A "Rescission Act" passed in 1946 excluded Filipino veterans from full U.S. veteran benefits despite the fact that they were drafted into the U.S. Army in 1941 and promised benefits by President Truman.

- Manila Mail (San Francisco)

NO TIME FOR FAMILY -- A KEY STRESS FACTOR FOR ASIANS

As regional economic crises pinched wages and spurred many to work harder, Asians found life much more stressful in 1997, according to Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC). While "money matters" were a factor, the major cause was difficulty balancing professional life with social or family life.

People in Vietnam were the most stressed and those in Taiwan were the least; India ranked in the middle, according to the survey of 500 locals and expatriates in Asia conducted in September and October.

- India West (Emeryville, CA)

BAGHDAD BECOMES ONE GIANT FLEA MARKET

Baghdad -- once one of the Middle East's most prosperous and modern cities -- has turned into one gigantic flea market as residents try to survive six years of sanctions by selling everything and anything they own.

At first it was affluent citizens selling off objets-'dart -- customs agents looked the other way as foreigners left with priceless goods bought at bargain basement prices. Next, more mundane goods appeared  -- furniture, carpets, gew-gaws -- anything that would fetch even a little cash with which to buy food and medicines. Now whole neighborhoods of the city specialize in certain goods like electronics and videos.

The big question on residents' minds as more and more become convinced the sanctions will continue for years to come is, "What can we sell next?" Some have begun to take their houses apart bit by bit--selling antique bricks, grillwork and windows.

- As Sharq al-Ausat (London)

MODERATE MUSLIMS DANCE BY TOUCHING FINGERS

At a recent party in Turkey, popular Egyptian commentator Fehmi Howeidi observed men and women, all moderate Muslims, dancing -- but the closest they came to each other was touching fingers. Howeidi, who travels widely in the Muslim world, ridiculed Arabs and Muslims who forbid all mixed dancing and singing.

The column prompted an angry retort from a scholar in Saudi Arabia who admonished Howeidi that music and dancing take people's minds away from God, citing a verse from the Qur'an which alludes to a pagan of the Prophet's time who preferred Persian romances to the message of God. His fate: humiliating punishment.

- Al Majalla (London)

EUROPEANS BULLISH ON ASIAN ECONOMIES

Far from being scared away from East Asian markets, Europeans are rushing to get into them. Leading the rush are big cash-rich Swiss and Dutch financial houses. Once seen as "too closed," Asian markets are now forced to open their doors to attract cash.

Meanwhile, international cash keeps flowing into US financial markets. This is most clear when one looks at 30 year Treasury bonds -- in late October, as the falling Hong Kong markets triggered similar falls elsewhere, investors rushed to buy U.S. bonds, driving the price up and yields down.

- World Journal (San Francisco)

REMEMBERING RAPE OF NANKING 60 YEARS LATER

A growing body of scholarship concerns one of the worst massacres in Chinese history -- the Great Slaughter of Nanking when Japanese troops killed as many as 300,000 Chinese. Virtually all studies agree that the massacre was planned, but it is not clear just why the Japanese chose Nanking -- no other area of China suffered a similar fate.

Wang En Jien, a professor from Zhengzhou University, thinks the Japanese chose Nanking as an example because it was the capital of the Republic of China, whose government had determined to resist the Japanese invasion. Now sixty years later, overseas Chinese are calling on the Japanese government to recognize its historic responsibility for this horror before the century ends.

- World Journal (San Francisco)

MAJORITY OF PENALIZED IMMIGRANTS OF ASIAN AND PACIFIC ORIGIN

At least 75 percent of the 3,600 legal immigrants who have lost their food stamps in San Francisco under the 1996 Welfare Reform law are Asians and Pacific Islanders, according to John Young of the Department of Human Services (DHS).

Ling Chen, 32 and a mother of two children aged 2 and 5, is typical of those now lining up for free food supplied through a city-funded $250,000 program. Her family emigrated from China three years ago, and so is ineligible for naturalization, which requires at least five years of residency. Her husband is unemployed and she stays home to care for their children. They were receiving $200 in food stamps until September when that amount was cut in half. The city program provided Chen with enough cereal, canned food and rice to last two days.

- Asia Week (San Francisco)

SEXISM AND XENOPHOBIA MARK KOREA'S NATIONALITY LAWS

Critics say that South Korea's nationality laws discriminate against foreign workers and their spouses and families in a particularly obnoxious way. Foreign wives of Korean husbands are not much affected, but Korean women who marry foreign workers lose their citizenship, and their husbands are barred from gaining employment, or reentering the country if they leave -- those who visit but stay after their visas expire are declared illegal aliens. Children of foreign fathers and Korean mothers are also considered stateless and denied access to education unless the mother invalidates her marriage and declares the children illegitimate.

- Korea Times (Los Angeles)

IMMIGRANTS EXCLUDED FROM PRESIDENT'S DIALOGUE

The Dec. 6 shooting death of a 50 year old Korean immigrant gas station attendant in Culver City, California, by a non-Korean assailant received no mention in the English language media. Yet when a Korean immigrant storekeeper shoots a non Korean customer, the incident almost invariably becomes a racial cause celebre.

Many Korean immigrants with businesses in low income neighborhoods live in fear of making a wrong move. They point to Minister Louis Farrakhan's description of them during the Million Man March as "blood suckers" of African Americans. Many live in fear of a repeat of the 1992 LA riots, when 2000 Korean-owned stores were destroyed overnight.

Lacking proficiency in English, and largely ignored by so-called community leaders, they have no organization equivalent to the NAACP or the Japanese American Citizen's League to turn to for help or to voice their concerns.

- Korea Times (Los Angeles)