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
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“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’
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Has China’s Young Jedi Knight Just Joined the Dark... →
Tea Leaf Nation on all-around celebrity Han Han’s new journal, One.
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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)
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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?
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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
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The Lady and the Lama →
Chinese Characters contributer Alec Ash writes about an historic meeting in London for The Economist
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“‘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
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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...
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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.
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