June 2012
45 posts
“This is the worst year. This place used to be packed with buyers from around the...”
– in Bloomberg News, Angry Bagmaker Shows China Slowdown Worst in Wenzhou
“As Father stepped off the bus, the head of my brother’s department was there...”
– From the translated essay, That Year, These Years: Stories of Tiananmen in China Digital Times
1 tag
“So you can see that once you enter the system, you need to become bad. If you...”
– Chinese Characters contributor Ian Johnson interviews Chen Guangcheng for The New York Review of Books:‘Pressure for Change is at the Grassroots’
2 tags
Has China’s Young Jedi Knight Just Joined the Dark... →
Tea Leaf Nation on all-around celebrity Han Han’s new journal, One.
1 tag
Watch
Great episode, Americans in China, on This American Life. Act One is by Chinese Characters contributer Evan Osnos:
ACT ONE. WHY DO YOU HAVE TO GO AND MAKE THINGS SO COMPLICATED?
There are about seventy thousand Americans living in mainland China today, according to the Chinese and US governments. A lot of the Americans in China only stay for a few years, but then there are others — American...
“This nation can have anything, they can have a satellite that goes to the sky...”
– - artist Ai Weiwei on authorities’ refusal to explain why he is being prevented from attending his own court hearing
Ai Weiwei Prevented from Attending Hearing - China Digital Times (CDT)
2 tags
Xu Zhiyong (许志永): An Account of My Recent... →
A first-hand account of illegal detention in China, translated by Yaxue Cao at Seeing Red in China
“A typical view in China is that the so-called Arab democratic wave is in essence...”
– A Chinese student in Cairo writes for the Anthill: A Chinese spring?
1 tag
China Closes Window on Economic Debate, Protecting...
“It’s not a good time to speak out for reforms, but it’s a good time to speak out against them,” said Li Shuguang, a professor at the China University of Politics and Law. “The government doesn’t encourage debate.”
Few people illustrate this conundrum better than Zhang Weiying, a 53-year-old Peking University professor who is probably the closest China has to an economic dissident.
Chinese...
“‘This is my real-self. I have covered myself up for the past 80-ish...”
– Chinese government official becomes a woman aged 84 in the Telegraph
1 tag
1 tag
The Lady and the Lama →
Chinese Characters contributer Alec Ash writes about an historic meeting in London for The Economist
1 tag
1 tag
“‘What is wrong with society?’ Li Chengpeng, a widely followed...”
– In Evan Osnos’ piece about a family-planning story that has China’s social media up in arms: Abortion and Politics in China : The New Yorker
1 tag
5 tags
Chinese Characters contributors in #FPwomeratti
Write Jillian C. York , Katrin Verclas and Lisa Goldman in Foreign Policy.
When Foreign Policy published its 2012 Twitterati 100 list, we could not help but be struck by the lack of women. Of the 100 tweeters Foreign Policy said “you need to follow,” nearly 90 percent are men. Given the strong presence of smart, powerful, influential women on Twitter, we found this a bit hard to...
1 tag
Why help Mao's words live on?
Xujun Eberlein tries to understand why so many Chinese writers willingly took part in a book project celebrating Mao’s words that would choke their art’s demand for independent thought and speech. She writes for the South China Morning Post.
2 tags
1 tag
“Truth, it turns out, has started imitating fiction in ways that have made the...”
– Chinese Characters contributor Xujun Eberlein writes for Foreign Policy: China’s booming
bureaucracy lit
is part exposé —
and part how-to guide.
1 tag
Chinese Characters co-editor Jeffrey Wasserstrom...
“This is the confusing world of the People’s Republic 2.0, with its sliding scale of dissidence, a gray zone where authors are constrained but can flout the official rules without their work necessarily being banned. They carefully calibrate what can be communicated in English but not in Chinese; in Hong Kong but not in Beijing; online but not in print; via allegory but not direct...
1 tag
“Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Angilee Shah have assembled one of the most engaging, compelling narratives about China - past and present - that I’ve ever read. The contributors take us on journeys across contemporary Chinese landscapes in a wonderful range of tones and voices, mountains and cities. I can’t wait to pass this on.”
Susan Straight, Distinguished Professor of...
1 tag
Shall we go? I feel I’m inconveniencing you.
How so?
Someone just took our picture.
You can get unlimited coffee refills at McDonald’s, including milk and sugar. We should have more coffee.
Ian Johnson interviews one of China’s best-known political dissidents in a Beijing McDonald’s for the NYR Blog: ‘In the Current System, I’d Be Corrupt Too’: An Interview with Bao Tong
From the Sinica Podcast: A discussion of gender...
“The Communist Party wants to control everything but with the development of the...”
– says Hong Kong publisher Meng Lang in Time Out Hong Kong
1 tag
1 tag
“Part of the complexity about being a big Chinese company is that it’s not clear...”
– writes Evan Osnos for the New Yorker: The Unwritten Rules in Chinese Technology
2 tags
China to send its first woman into space →
Tania Branigan reports for The Guardian
“An Englishman dreams of living in Xinjiang in another era. Write a story based...”
– A question in China’s national university entrance exam, via Gaokao essay questions: fun and easy! | Danwei
“Every NGO in China wants to keep a low profile, but when there is a key moment,...”
– Said Yu Xiaogang, founder of Green Watershed, as quoted in Green Dragon by Mike Ives for Earth Island Journal.
“‘Interestingly, deletion of Sina Weibo messages tend to hit a low on...”
– Reverse engineering Chinese censorship: When and why are controversial tweets deleted? » Nieman Journalism Lab
2 tags
1 tag
“Warning: We believe state-sponsored attackers may be attempting to compromise...”
– Chinese Characters contributor Evan Osnos got this message as well, and he writes about the experience for the New Yorker: Protecting Digital Information in China
1 tag
“Not the nicest thing to wake up to this morning, I have to say, a warning about...”
– Chinese Characters contributor Ananth Krishnan on Twitter. (June 5, 2012) Read more about the Gmail warnings in China Digital Times.
1 tag
Book to Watch For
Pankaj Mishra, who wrote the Foreword to Chinese Characters, has a new book out on August 21: From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia
“Our family’s newest, proudest acquisition was also utter contraband for a...”
– Jiayang Fan writes in Tiananmen and Our Little Red Phone for The New Yorker
1 tag
“Then it got weirder.”
– Evan Osnos on Anti-foreigner Sentiment in China for the New Yorker.
1 tag
“What makes Chinese Characters such an enjoyable read is that it is a mosaic of engrossing portraits that allows the endless paradoxes of China to come alive in myriad enthralling ways. While the contributors obviously possess a depth of professional and scholarly knowledge about China, what distinguishes their offerings here is vivid and evocative writing that shows rather than tells. You...
1 tag
“You’ll find it on your bookshelf if: You were outraged when Mike Daisey’s...”
– Chinese Characters contributor Michelle Dammon Loyalka’s book about migrant workers, Eating Bitterness, makes it onto a Zócalo Public Square list: Three Good Books About Three Bad Things
1 tag
Julia Lovell on the Opium War →
A Q&A with Alec Ash at The Browser
1 tag
Finding Zen and Book Contracts in Beijing →
Ian Johnson’s short profile of an interesting character in China for the New York Review of Books. Johnson described his piece this way:
Something postiive and unusual about China: you can actually make a buck selling books here. A small profile of Chinese poetry translator Bill Porter (Red Pine), who’s a mini-celebrity in China as a guru on China’s own culture. A bizarre story...
1 tag
David Moser hosts Jeffrey Wasserstrom and students...