Fans of Aretha Franklin came together at New York City’s landmark Apollo Theater and on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday to pay their respects to the Queen of Soul, singing along to her hits and sharing memories of her remarkable career.

Franklin, known for such classic songs as “Respect” and “Chain of Fools,” died at home in Detroit on Thursday at the age of 76 after a battle with pancreatic cancer, her family said.

“My heart feels empty,” said Sheila Black, 51, outside the Apollo, not far from where she grew up in Harlem, as she recalled listening to Franklin’s “Another Night Without You” to get over heartbreak. “Her music will live forever. I’m just so sad that we had to lose her.”

Billy Mitchell, the Apollo’s historian, said the landmark theater would likely hold a tribute to one of its most beloved performers.

“We’re sad but we’re very grateful to have had someone like Aretha Franklin in our lifetime,” said Mitchell, known as “Mr. Apollo.”

Inducted to the Apollo’s Walk of Fame in 2010, Franklin performed there more than a dozen times, most recently in 2010.

Her June 1971 “homecoming” show “drove fans to near-hysteria,” according to the theater.

“Aretha’s legacy should be excellence in music,” Mitchell said. “There’s a reason why she’s queen. You don’t get to get that title by being mediocre.”

Lou Adams, 77, who had seen Franklin perform at the Apollo, said she was one of the greats. “It’s an experience you can’t explain; you have to feel,” he said of the concert.

Fans gathered at Franklin’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, leaving flowers and candles and sharing tributes to the entertainer.

“Every time one of her songs comes on, everyone sings along, everyone knows the lyrics and… her songs give you that power, like that confidence to step out into the world and to feel, as a woman and as a black woman, like, that you are beautiful and that you can do it,” said Chelsea Monroe, 29.

Crystal Carpenter, 56, said she grew up listening to Franklin in the late 60s and early 70s.

“And my mom bought this album back in ’71 and now I have it,” Carpenter said, holding a copy of Franklin’s ‘Amazing Grace,’ which was recorded live in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles.

“I love her gospel, secular, everything,” Carpenter said. “She was the queen.”
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Outfielder Rolando Rodriguez from Panama heard a reporter’s question, but he doesn’t speak English. So Georgia shortstop Tai Peete helped him out, pecking the words into Google Translate to ask about how young baseball players are sharing technology during the Little League World Series.

“It was easier than expected,” Rodriguez said of the language barrier, speaking through an interpreter.

So goes life in the International Grove, the dorms where 16 teams all are staying during the double-elimination tournament in pursuit of a world title. Apps and even video games are making it easier for the boys to communicate and get to know each other — making smartphones a key part rather than a distraction during their moment of a lifetime.

Eight teams are from U.S. states while the other teams represent various countries around the world and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.  Players are using Translate to input questions in their native languages and let other players read or hear them in one of more than 100 languages.

Trading pins

That’s changing some of the tournament’s traditions. For example, each team has pins that they are given to trade with other teams. While body language used to go a long way in this process, players are using technology to directly ask for trades.

No words actually need to be spoken aloud, but the kids still are helping fellow baseball players pronounce the words, learning a little bit of a new language in the process.

“I talked to the Mexico team,” Peete said. “I was talking about Little League and they couldn’t pronounce it, so I was helping them.”

Even with better technology, language and cultural barriers still exist.

It’s “a lot harder than I thought,” said Lee Jae-hyeok of South Korea, who noted through a human interpreter that players also were using Facebook to connect.

The days leading up to the start of the series on Thursday consisted of practices, interviews and hanging out in the players village. For the duration of the tournament, each team from the U.S. bracket shares a dorm with one of the international teams. The rooms have bunk beds and TVs, but no Wi-Fi.

They do have a game room, however, which allows players to get their video game fix in a more social way.

Arcade games, table tennis

The space has arcade games, including bowling and motorcycle simulators, but also activities like table tennis. Peete taught the tailgate favorite cornhole to the Australian club.

One common thread for most of the boys: Fortnite, the massively popular, multiplayer shootout video game. They don’t have their consoles but they can still play on their phones and try to impress each other with renditions of the famous dances done by the game’s characters.

But the reason for their visit to Pennsylvania loomed.

“Can we play a [baseball] game?” Peete asked a volunteer at the Little League complex before the tournament started, suggesting that maybe the whole World Series could be moved up.

“There’s nothing else to do,” he said.
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Aretha Franklin, who was born and rose to fame during the segregation era and went on to sing at the inauguration of the first black president, often used her talent, fortune and platform to inspire millions of black Americans and support the fight for racial equality.

“She not only provided the soundtrack for the civil rights movement, Aretha’s music transcended race, nationality and religion and helped people from all backgrounds to recognize what they had in common,” said longtime civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery.

Franklin, who died Thursday at 76, was a close confidante of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a financial lifeline to the civil rights organization he co-founded, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

​Father’s commitment

The Queen of Soul’s commitment to civil rights was instilled by her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, who also knew King and preached social justice from his pulpit at New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit.

The church, in fact, was the first place King gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. Among those in the congregation were Aretha Franklin and Mahalia Jackson. It was Jackson who later urged the civil rights leader to “tell them about the dream, Martin” at the March on Washington, where he delivered the oration for which he is most famous.

Franklin recorded “Respect” on Valentine’s Day 1967. Black Americans had won federal legislation outlawing segregation and protecting their voting rights, particularly in the Deep South.

But blacks were still a year away from the Fair Housing Act. And just months after the song was recorded, urban centers, including Franklin’s hometown of Detroit, would burn, exposing police brutality and unequal living conditions and job opportunities.

Financial backer

“Her songs were songs of the movement,” Andrew Young, the former King lieutenant and U.N. ambassador, said Thursday. “R-E-S-P-E-C-T. … That’s basically what we wanted. The movement was about respect.”

The SCLC often struggled financially, but Franklin played a vital role in keeping the movement afloat.

“Almost every time we needed money, there were two people we could always count on: Aretha Franklin and Harry Belafonte,” Young said. “They would get together and have a concert, and that would put us back on our feet.”

Strong faith

King and Franklin were like spiritual siblings, sharing a bond rooted in their Christian faith, Young said. King would often ask Franklin to sing his favorite songs, “Amazing Grace” or “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” When King was assassinated in 1968, Franklin sang “Precious Lord” at his funeral in Atlanta.

Franklin’s “Amazing Grace” was also a comfort to the Rev. Al Sharpton when he was a boy. He recalled that his mother would play the song nonstop in their Brooklyn home after his father left.

As an adult and an activist, Sharpton became friends with the soul singer. He noted her unwavering faith, which she brought with her on stage to every performance.

“Whether it was the White House, Radio City Music Hall or the Apollo Theater, she always did gospel numbers,” Sharpton said. “She was unapologetically a hardcore, faith-believing Baptist. At the height of her career, she cut a gospel album. Who does that? Her faith is what motivated her.”

Committed to social justice

Long after the civil rights movement ended, Franklin remained committed to social justice, helping Sharpton as he began his organization, the National Action Network, in New York. She would call Sharpton for updates on the emerging Black Lives Matter movement, asking about such cases as those of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner.

“She gave so much to so many people, from Dr. King, to Mandela, to Barack Obama,” said Rev. Jesse Jackson, a longtime friend who visited her the day before her death.

Her presence and influence were as valuable to the movement as her financial contributions, Sharpton said.

“To have someone like that that involved and interested … was a statement,” he said. “It gave all the credibility in the world. Others had celebrity, but she had gravity and respect.”
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Along the Gulf Coast in the southern part of the United States, two distinct cultures have settled in the area: Vietnamese refugees and Cajuns descended from French colonists, who first lived in the eastern part of Canada and eventually resettled in Louisiana. Many of the Vietnamese who live along the Gulf Coast not only embraced Cajun food but created something new — a fusion of two cuisines. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details from a Vietnamese Cajun restaurant in Houston.
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Cajun food is well known along the Gulf Coast in the southern part of the United States. This type of food is known for its unique blend of spices in seafood, sausage and rice.

But less well known is a much newer type of cuisine. It blends Cajun food introduced by French colonists who settled in Louisiana in the late 1700s and dishes introduced by Vietnamese refugees who settled in Louisiana after Saigon fell to North Vietnamese forces in 1975.

Many of the Vietnamese who live along the Gulf Coast have created something new by blending the two cultures.

The Houston-based restaurant Crawfish & Noodles is one of many Cajun food establishments founded by Vietnamese immigrants.

Special blend of seasonings

Restaurant owner and chef Trong Nguyen makes boiled crawfish, perhaps the best known of Cajun foods. However, he adds something a little different to the traditional Cajun spices.

“We sprinkle that with Viet-Cajun seasoning,” said Nguyen as he mixed boiled crawfish with a blend of seasonings.

Similar to traditional Cajun boiled crawfish, Nguyen’s Viet-Cajun version includes garlic, onions and butter. But his crawfish also has Vietnamese spices. He attributed his knack for flavors to his grandmother.

“Back in Vietnam, my grandmom was a very great cook, so I have the taste (after) many years growing up with her,” Nguyen said, remembering helping her prepare Vietnamese dishes.

A refugee at 17

Nguyen was 17 when he settled in Houston in the late 1980s as a Vietnamese refugee seeking political asylum. In the U.S., he studied and worked several jobs, including casino marketing and hotel restaurant management, before owning his family-run restaurant that specialized in Vietnamese-Cajun-styled seafood.

Many Vietnamese immigrants along the Gulf Coast turned to the seafood industry.

“The first (Vietnamese) immigrant(s) (who) came to the U.S. (are) pretty much the people (who) live in the shrimp boat. You know they do a lot of shrimp and stuff,” Nguyen said, adding that it made sense for Vietnamese immigrants to embrace Cajun dishes, many of which feature crawfish, shrimp and catfish cooked with distinct Cajun spices.

“The Vietnamese seem to understand the culture more. Vietnamese dive into that kind of business,” said Nguyen, who also uses French ingredients in his foods.

The two cultures appear different, but they share an important historic link: Vietnam was a French colony, and the Cajuns’ ancestors were French colonists.

Nguyen said customers at his restaurant have developed quite a taste for this fusion of flavors. Popular dishes include Cajun shrimp, salt and pepper crab, calamari and Viet-Cajun crawfish.

“The oriental spices are probably less salty than the traditional Cajun, different spices that give it a very unique flavor,” said crawfish lover Mike Vandenbold, a native of southern Louisiana. He and his friends have been coming to the restaurant once a week for the past three months.

“When we came here, the extra Viet-Cajun spice is what made it for us. We like these better than the traditional Cajun crawfish,” Vandenbold said. 

“It’s very flavorful,” said Terri Tran, a Vietnamese-American. There’s lots of seasoning on it, and the crawfish is cooked perfectly.”

Nguyen said he hopes the next generation of chefs will create even better versions of Vietnamese Cajun cuisine and celebrate the unique blending of flavors and cultures.
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Singapore is the setting for new Hollywood movie ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ – an adaptation of a best-selling novel that explores the insatiable consumerism of new money and old-world opulence in a continent producing more billionaires than anywhere else.

While the low-tax financial hub is often called a playground for the rich, Singapore’s wealthy tend to live a more conservative, low-key life than Hong Kong’s showy socialites or Macau’s high-rollers.

In step with the film’s release in the United States on Wednesday and ahead of its release in the city-state next week, here are five ways to spend your cash in Singapore.

1. Orchid-shaped supercars

Cars in Singapore are some of the most expensive in the world, owing to huge government taxes aimed at limiting their number in the tiny island-state.

That doesn’t stop the super-rich – Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini are commonly sighted. When a Singaporean character in Kevin Kwan’s book, Goh Peik Lin, moves to America to study she immediately buys a Porsche saying they are “such a bargain.”

For the super-rich patriot, Singapore-based firm Vanda Electrics has designed an electric supercar – Dendrobium. Its roof and doors open in sync to resemble the orchid that is native to Singapore and after which the vehicle is named.

A show car, built by the technology arm of the Williams Formula One team, was unveiled last year. It was originally estimated to cost around 3 million euros ($3.44 million) before tax, although Vanda Electrics advised the final price will likely be lower.

1. Yachts with submarines

Yachts are an affordable alternative to such supercars.

“Impulse buys of luxury items such as yachts are becoming more common” said Phill Gregory, the Singapore head of yacht dealers Simpson Marine, who sell everything from sports boats to super yachts costing tens of millions of dollars.

Gregory said Singapore-based clients have some of the most sophisticated tastes and an eye for style: sometimes he flies them to Europe to deck out their yacht with luxury furniture from the artisans of Milan or world-famous Carrara marble straight from the quarries in Tuscany.

Others have more unusual requests. These include a bespoke ‘beach club style’ lounge area set underneath a shimmering swimming pool, helipads or even a space to park a small submarine or sea-plane.

1. 999 roses

The iconic Marina Bay Sands hotel – which resembles a giant surfboard perched on three tall columns – features prominently in the film’s trailer.

The hotel features the invitation-only Chairman’s suite – the largest in Singapore – which has its own gym, hair salon, and karaoke room, and according to some media reports costs over $15,000 a night. There is no publicly available price.

The likes of former British soccer star David Beckham and Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan have stayed at the hotel.

George Roe, director of hotel operations at Marina Bay Sands, said he has had some unusual requests from his guests including organizing the delivery of 999 roses to a residential address in Singapore as a surprise.

1. Rare beef

“You do realize Singapore is the most food obsessed country on the planet?,” Nick Young, the very well-heeled protagonist of ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ tells his girlfriend Rachel Chu ahead of their trip to the city-state.

Even hawker stalls hold Michelin stars in Singapore but there’s no shortage of places for the super-rich to get their fix.

The restaurant CUT by Wolfgang Puck is the only one in Singapore to offer Hokkaido snow beef – which is even scarcer than Kobe beef – through an exclusive arrangement with a private reserve in Japan.

Only two cattle are harvested from the reserve every month, with CUT receiving about 20-30 steaks a month – a chunk of which goes to regulars who visit the restaurant every time it comes on the menu, said general manager Paul Joseph. The current price is S$330 ($240) for a modest 170 gram serving.

1. Gold tea

Forget wearing gold – in Singapore you can drink it. 

Boutique Singaporean tea company TWG Tea claims to sell one of the world’s most expensive teas – a white tea plated with 24-karat gold which retails at S$19,000 ($14,000) a kilo.

The Grand Golden Yin Zhen is described as a “glimpse of the divine in a teacup”, and the gold is said to have anti-oxidant properties that revitalize and rejuvenate the skin.
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