August 2012
44 posts
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“I searched all over the Internet, and I couldn’t find a single portrait of a...”
– A Weibo microblogger compares London’s Olympics Opening Ceremony to Beijing’s, particularly London’s celebration of the workers who built their new stadium, in Pride and Shame: China, the Olympics, and Ye Shiwen by Evan Osnos for The New Yorker.
July 2012
46 posts
London 2012: A recipe for the perfect ping pong... →
Writes Tania Branigan in The Guardian:
Double Happiness, Zhen’s employer, has been there at every step of the evolution. Named by Zhou Enlai, wielded by Mao Zedong and stolen by the disgraced politician Bo Xilai, the company’s bats and blades remain the weapons of choice for both park amateurs and global champions.
Read the full story.
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"Genius" Saina stirs China’s imagination as... →
Writes Ananth Krishnan:
At the Dongdan sports complex at the heart of central Beijing, it becomes quickly apparent that there are few sports that Chinese take more seriously than Badminton.
…
When the women’s singles competition’s first rounds begin in earnest on Sunday, millions of Chinese will tune in and follow the campaigns of China’s three big stars – the world number one and...
“But the final 100m was impossible. Flat out. If all her split times had been...”
– John Leonard, executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, said Ye Shiwen’s world record Olympic swim was ‘disturbing’ in The Guardian. China responds.
“‘I was so eager and impatient to go on the podium,’ said Sun,...”
– Sun Yang and Ye Shiwen give China 2 golds and a world record on opening night of swimming, Associated Press via Washington Post
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“The essays cover a panoply of issues facing modern China, and the book’s...”
– From the Publishers Weekly review of Chinese Characters.
The return of activist journalism in China →
Haiyan Wang, former investigative reporter for the Southern Metropolitan Daily in Guangzhou, writes about her profession in the Financial Times.
“My office is at Zuojiazhuang A2 Beijing Friendship Garden 1-6H. We have water,...”
– A microbloggers’ offer of help during floods in Beijing, in Elizabeth Economy’s post at Asia Unbound: China’s New Political Class: The People
“You can launch a space station, you can sneak a submarine into a marine trench,...”
– Microblogger “fen123” said, as reported by Adam Minter for Bloomberg Beijing’s Olympic Glory Washes Away
WatchNPR on a new translation of a Chinese classic that might sound familiar to fans of Gone With the Wind
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“The secret of Qingdao, a [coastal] city that not afraid of floods? Its drains...”
– says a commenter on Weibo, in Chinese Characters contributor Christina Larson’s report for the Christian Science Monitor: Beijing floods unleash online criticism of government
“What are they good for? What did they inherit from their fathers? They should...”
– A retired official tells Edward Yong of The New York Times in his report, China’s Communist Elders Take Backroom Intrigue Beachside. Also see a 1987 report in The New York Times Building Sand Castles and Plotting China’s Future.
“In every instance that I have accurate firsthand knowledge of a foreign...”
– A reader of China Law Blog has some surprising things to say about bribery in China.
Chinese Netizens to Embattled Syrians: We Support... →
From Tea Leaf Nation
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WatchVia @ananthkrishnan: “Girl from small Liaoning town brilliantly nails “Rolling In The Deep”. Madness ensues.”
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“Going from there to here is a really amazing experience. I don’t think I would...”
– says Chinese Characters contributor Evan Osnos in an interview with Hamish McKenzie in PandoDaily: The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos on How Sina Weibo Changes Lives in China
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At centre of Tibetan troubles, fiery protests... →
Chinese Characters contributor Ananth Krishnan reports the death of Tibetan monk Lobsang Lozin, 18, who set himself on fire on Tuesday in protest.
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“In the West, if people know anything, they might think of him as conservative....”
– Yu Jie discussed his new biography of Liu Xiaobo with Ian Johnson For the New York Review Blog.
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“Automation is the beginning of the end of the factory girl, and that’s a...”
– David Wolf, a Beijing-based strategic communications and IT analyst, told Chinese Characters contributor Christina Larson in her piece about changes at one of China’s biggest employers: Migrant Workers in China Face Competition from Robots - Technology Review
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Ordination of Bishops Increases Tensions Between... →
Chinese Characters contributor Ian Johnson reports for The New York Times
“There are a lot of stereotypes about sports like rugby, but I don’t look...”
– says Echo Zou in Beijing, in an article about women and sports in China by Eva Cohen for The Common Language Project: Women’s Sports Take China by Storm
A Few Moments in the China Rising Story →
Muron Xuecun on “rise of amnesia” in China and five profiles of grassroots resistance
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“In one of the schools the principal invited me to stay an extra day and go with...”
– Michelle Dammon Loyalka talks about how she ended up in the countryside and the meaning of chiku at wwword
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Many Moons in China on the Chinese Characters... →
Many Moons in China writes after reading chapter five:
“I want to read this book! Check out the tumblr for a new collection of essays about people in China, Chinese Characters: Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land. Also, Eberlein’s chapter is great.”
Thanks so much for the kind words. You can pre-order Chinese Characters at Amazon or UC Press.
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Wednesday, July 18 in Orange County →
Chinese Characters co-editor Jeffrey Wasserstrom discusses Chinas past and present at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana.
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Is the Chinese Economy Running Out of Steam? →
Analysis by Evan Osnos in The New Yorker
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“In fact, one of my secrets is that the day I formally announced or handed over...”
– Ananth Krishnan interviewed the Dalai Lama on his birthday for The Hindu: ‘Meaningful autonomy is the only realistic solution’
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Preview: Another Swimmer
When I first met He Shu, he wanted to know how my sister Ruo-Dan had died. He was painstakingly collecting historical facts and stories about the pitched battles between rival factions during the Cultural Revolution era in China, and he thought that my sister must have been killed in one such skirmish.
Read all of this chapter by Xujun Eberlein in Chinese Characters on the UC Press website.
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Pit of Dreams →
Can China’s rust belt reinvent itself as a tourist destination? Jonathan Kaiman reports from Fuxin for Foreign Policy
WatchLouisa Lim reports for NPR on China’s “corruption in rosy pink.”
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“In contemporary China, he writes, painful memories of the Mao years are not only...”
– Chinese Characters contributor Alec Ash reviews Yu Hua’s China in Ten Words for Standpont: Mao to Deng and Back Again
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“Even we aren’t sure exactly how many China Beatniks are out there, but over the...”
– The China Beat, co-founded by Chinese Characters co-editor Jeffrey Wasserstrom, says goodbye: All Good Things Must Come to an End: China Beat’s 1,000th Post
“The North Koreans can’t export weapons anymore because of [international]...”
– said Sohn Kyang-ju, who Barbara Demick describes as a “former South Korean intelligence official who now heads the Seoul-based NK Daily Unification Strategy Institute.” From Demick’s Los Angeles Times report, China hires tens of thousands of North Korea guest workers.
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Experts: On 15th Anniversary of Hong Kong... →
Says Chinese Characters co-editor Jeffrey Wasserstrom:
What has surprised me most since the handover — in a positive way — is that one is still able to buy so many books in Hong Kong that cannot be purchased or sold publicly in any other part of the People’s Republic of China, including ones that offer views of events such as June 4 and people such as the Dalai Lama that...
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“I earn their trust and give them the smile and service of an angel.”
– How Best Buy Tackled China’s Middle Class Through Trial and Error; Jiangsu Five Star - WSJ.com 