Two big names in San Francisco’s Chinese American community are making news.

San Francisco Magazine is reporting that Rose Pak, the outspoken power broker of Chinatown, is seriously ill with kidney failure.

Never one to mince words, the thought that she could die has entered her conscious.

“When you’re gone, you’re gone,” she says. “I don’t want to be hooked up to the damn machine.”

She also is never one to mince words about politics–striking a sour note about San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee.

“A Chinese-American fu*king mayor!” she said. “It is the biggest disappointment in my life,” she said with tears flowing. Pak is still fuming that Lee appointed Julie Christensen as supervisor to fill the vacant district 3 seat (which includes Chinatown) over Park’s own choice Cindy Wu.

She still thinks Lee coddles the tech elite at the expense of the pour of the city, including those in Chinatown.

Pak’s illness may have slowed her, but the fight in her remains.

She elaborates on her illness and the treatment she’s undergoing in San Francisco Magazine





Meanwhile, The Recorder is reporting that longtime Municipal Court Judge Lillian Sing will retire September 17 after 30 years on the bench. She was the first Asian American woman to be appointed a judge in Northern California.

“I’d go to events and people would say, ‘You don’t look like a judge,'” she said. “We just did it, We didn’t think twice about it, ” Sing recalled about the appointment by Governor Brown during his first stint in office.

Prior to becoming judge, she was well known for her work in the Chinese American community.