Perhaps it was in the strictest sense an unlawful gathering; maybe they were naive. But the people who were assembled in Tiananmen Square on this day in 1989 formed a cross section of Chinese society. From farmers to teachers, students to shopkeepers, and factory workers to intellectuals, all were looking to their government to fulfill [...]
Chinese Culture Posts
Laowai Quake Relief Part IV: The Youth Lead by Example
What follows is the fourth part of a series of posts we’re running by fellow Laowai – Turner Sparks. Turner and his friend Jake decided just sitting around Suzhou and watching quake relief efforts on TV was not good enough, and so hopped into Turner’s car and pointed it towards Chengdu. Read Part I, Part [...]
Boomtown Beijing – A coversation with Tan Siok Siok
Last summer acclaimed documentary filmmaker Tan Siok Siok headed out into the streets of Beijing with a rather ambitious goal of capturing the essence of the city and its people the summer before the Olympics. The result is Boomtown Beijing, a film that paints a picture of not just a city or the sporting event [...]
Mum’s the Word
There’s this spot on my university campus that we’ve taken to calling “The Makeout Garden.” During the day it’s like any spot of green on the grounds of the ivory tower – a blip of green to contrast with the blase bathroom-tiled buildings of academic boredom. It’s full of elderly people performing taiji and students [...]
QQ&A: Han Han holds hope
With the swarm of anti-France/boycott-Carrefour messages still plaguing the wireless networks, IM chats and BBSes, it was a pleasant surprise to run across Jason’s post at Over and Out sharing a QQ forward he received that – shockingly – doesn’t rise up and call to arms the seething masses of ultra-nationalists. For this laowai, I [...]
In Defense of Your Er Nai, by: the male ego
Ah, springtime in Jiangnan: fields awash in patches of yellow canola blooms…plum and cherry petals whipping around the picnickers beneath them…lovers meeting secretly before the wife gets home… Yes, springtime is much more beautiful when it’s shared with an er nai. And why not? You’ve got the money to keep one–rent an apartment, buy expensive [...]
Troubles in China’s Wild West
I’ve been hesitant to write much about the violent underway in , as I figured it was a sure way to get the site blocked(a la YouTube). However, I’m really impressed with the folks over at Peking Duck and their ongoing updates about the situation. Additionally, there’s some fantastic activity in the comments coming from [...]
Bad News for Baijiu
According to The New York Times, some Chinese officials are now requiring party cadres to submit to sobriety tests in the afternoons in an effort to curtail baijiu-soaked “liquid lunches”. The reasoning behind the measure is sound- these lunches are paid for by the public purse, and having a large amount of government officials spending [...]
Chinese New Year – the Beast is upon us
With flak jacket on, and earplugs in place, I thought I’d usher in the new lunar year with a little post about the origins of the Chinese New Year, as well as some useful language for the holiday. This is my fourth endurance of the explosive holiday, and I always approach it with mixed emotions. [...]
BBC World Earth Report: Guangxi’s Biogas Revolution
One of my New Year’s resolutions in 2008 is to fight pessimism. Anyone else fed up with BAD news about the environment? Why is it always BAD news when there are pockets of resistance all over the world fighting for the environment against something much more dangerous and insidious than the build up of greenhouse [...]
