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 that it will play host to - but rather how a singular event has inspired people to do what in the past was so difficult and dangerous - dream.
The documentary follows the story of three Beijingers - an 11-year-old boy who hopes to be an Olympic torchbearer, a street sweeper looking to put together …
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 sprawled out sleeping during the morning and afternoon, but as soon as the sun goes down, it turns into a live re-enactment of an AXE commercial.
And I’m not really surprised. All of my students have at least three to five other roommates. They need to go somewhere. If it’s not The Makeout Garden, then it could be any of the “love …
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 couldn’t be happier to see that there are young Chinese standing firm and illustrating that China HAS actually changed - and that the Red Guard-like mentality that has coursed through the country as if it were some common-sense killing virus is not necessarily representative of the population - but rather just more vocal.
From Over and Out ‘a breath of fresh air‘:
most of the crap flying …
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 gifts, and give her a handsome monthly allowance so she need not work. Besides, you don’t love your wife in that way: you married her because it was time to get married, she was attractive enough, and even though you aren’t, she chose you for your financial soundness. Your marriage was a transaction, but this is love! (well, lust, at least, but you need that just …
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 both (all?) camps of the issue. I encourage you all to check it out.
Also, Michael D. Manning’s Opposite End of China is dishing out some great coverage of the topic, and how things have spilled over into other areas of the country. It is, however, being blocked for those of us in-country
Which brings me to the fact that I’ve had a …
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 the afternoons drunk doesn’t exactly inspire much confidence in Communist Party competence.
I doubt very many foreigners will shed a tear if baijiu becomes less prevalent in formal Chinese settings. All of us have a story of being invited to such a lunch, forced to eat an assortment of bizarre and unappetizing food, and subjected to round after round of baijiu toasts. I learned to …
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. On the one hand, it’s about as abrasive as a holiday can get. It’s full of filial duties that force a massive population that most days can’t afford meat to spend a year’s worth of savings on appeasing culture and custom. It’s also loud and dangerous, as fireworks and firecrackers go off pretty much nonstop for several days with little to no regard for public or …
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 gases: apathy.
Whilst most of us sit around deciding whether or not to believe the suddenly trendy science of pop stars, carbon footprints and environmental catastrophe that reaches us via our wide-screen TVs, many without such luxurious trappings are making a difference.
The irony is that it is “lack” that is fuelling change, and in the week that a report came out suggesting that the …
One of the first things ever said to me about Chinese zoos was from an English friend of mine shortly after I first arrived in China. He explained that before I head to any of China’s various “zoo”-like establishments I need to understand that in a country where 
are limited, don’t expect to see much in the way of animal rights.
He was right.
Chinese zoos are horrible. Even the least empathetic, non-compassionate person would have trouble not feeling a bit bad for any critter that has the misfortune of ending up in these animal asylums.
Impossibly small cages, little to no thought or concern given to proper habitat, mistreatment and mis-feeding by under-educated visitors, and total apathy towards it all by …
When I got an e-mail a few months back from book publisher DK to see if I was interested in reviewing their new book, “China: People Place Culture History
“, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
I had, wrongly, assumed that the book would simply be a token collection of pages about the Middle Kingdom. However, what came in the mail was a massive tome full of eclectic photos and information, as its title suggest, about the country’s people, geography, culture and history.
The absolutely beautifully bound book features stunning photography by Christopher Pillitz capturing China from a number of different angles …
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