June 2012
45 posts
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...
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“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
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Julia Lovell on the Opium War →
A Q&A with Alec Ash at The Browser
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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...
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David Moser hosts Jeffrey Wasserstrom and students...
May 2012
42 posts
1 tag
Goodreads Q&A with author Xujun Eberlein starts...
Virtually connect with Chinese Characters contributor Xujun Eberlein from June 1 to June 3 where she will discuss her life as a journalist and storyteller and her collection Apologies Forthcoming.
“‘It’s not a real fruit stand. They’re pretending to sell...”
– Barbara Demick reports for the Los Angeles Times: Chen Guangcheng is gone, but China keeps his village locked down
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Two Tibetans burn themselves as fiery protest... →
Chinese Characters contributor Ananth Krishnan reports for The Hindu
“The first requirement of the job is that you must be an advanced Mandarin...”
– From an inquiry for a part-time job for “some Americans to assist in meetings”: Chinese business looking for a few good Jews in Foreign Policy Passport.
“‘When I first came here two years ago, this area was just a bunch of...”
– Daniel Gillen, an American architect in northeastern China, quotes by Brook Larmer in The New York Times: Architects in China, Building the American Dream
Watch(via A Tale of Two Brothers: One in China, Other in US | PRI’s The World)
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“Youth in China are doing more than just buying brands and downloading free...”
– A response in Jeffrey Wasserstrom’s Q&A with All Eyes East author Mary Bergstrom: What Makes Chinese Youth Tick?
“With a wide smile and deep baritone chorus all the stresses of his week and year...”
– Photographer Rian Dundon introduces a KTV in Changsha: Photographs for China Beat, a small taste of his forthcoming book.
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A Chinese Murder Mystery? →
Chinese Characters contributor Ian Johnson in The New York Review of Books
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“Around 1,000 monks and nuns in monasteries in the Shannan prefecture of the...”
– From a report by Chinese Characters contributor Ananth Krishnan for The Hindu: Signature campaign in Tibet
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Five Books on China →
Chinese Characterscontributor Evan Osnos’ picks in the New Yorker blog Letter from China
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Shanghai, Bo Xilai and 5 China Noirs You Should... →
Jeff Wasserstrom for the Asia Society’s Asia Blog
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Watchnybooks:
‘Worse Than the Cultural Revolution’: An Interview With Tian Qing
Tian Qing may be China’s leading cultural heritage expert. A scholar of Buddhist musicology and the Chinese zither, or guqin, the sixty-four-year-old now heads the Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center, an institution set up by the government to protect China’s native traditions in the performing arts,...
