Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong just bought the Los Angeles Times.  Soon-Shiong was born in South Africa of Taishanese descent.  To be more precise, his family belongs to the Hakka group.  Hakka literally means "guest family".   They are Han people as is the overwhelming majority of Chinese.  But unlike other Han people, it is not sure what region of the country Hakka people were originally from.  But they have migrated over the centuries to many parts of the country, particularly Guangdong province.  So many of them are recognized as Taishanese even though they are not from there originally.  Confused?  So am I.

In any case, as many Hakka or Taishanese people, Soon Shiong's family left the country and ended up in South Africa.  The good doctor became a surgeon in South Africa and eventually migrated to Canada and then the U.S.  He made his fortunes by developing a cancer drug and founding couple of pharmaceutical companies.  In LA he has been a philanthropist, most notably helping to save an inner city hospital when he, using a phrase from his old country, said that it is time to stop medical apartheid.

So now the doctor is trying to save an industry, or at least one major paper, from life support.  He even talked about ambitious plans of expanding the Times and be in competition with the New York Times and the Washington Post.  He said that great print journalism is a public service in a private sector and is need more than ever.  Given his charity work among the poor, there is hope that he will do what he says.  But he had met with Trump couple of times before the inauguration and we don't know what they talked about.  He says he is politically independent.  He did complain about fake news on the internet.  I hope that is his way for saying great newspaper are more important than ever, not that he is agreeing with Trump!