Links! There are two events tomorrow that could be worth your time: Los Angeles Times reporter / North Korea expert Barbara Demick is talking at Crossroads at 7 pm, while Leslie Ann-Murray is launching a collective for emerging writers called Writing on Walls, with the first meet-up at 6:30 (again, tomorrow) at the Bookworm.
There really isn't much to say about these pictures, which were taken on May 3 on a beach in Sanya, Hainan province and tweeted out by China Daily Show just now ("Who says China lacks innovation?"). Excerpt, perhaps, "Why?" A couple more pictures follow. They might not be appropriate for office gawking.
This is one of those locally sourced, probably dramatized, perhaps unreliable accounts that appear every now and then in Chinese media, but the Global Times headline makes the piece:
Here's how to make a jidan guanbing, those delicious baked flat cakes lined with egg and rolled over a piece of chicken and lettuce, as demonstrated by Andrew Moffat:
Liu Xia, who has never been charged with a crime, has been imprisoned in her home since 2010 because her husband happens to be a Nobel Peace Prize recipient currently serving an 11-year sentence for "subversion of state power." That she clearly needs medical attention for worsening mental health makes no difference to the authorities, who insist on punishing her for the perceived sins of Liu Xiaobo.
Hope you've been enjoying the pre-links rain. The boys of Jing A and Smart Air are doing something fun at 4corners tomorrow - the worser the Beijing air, the cheaper their new beer!
On April 16, Alec Ash of the Anthill gathered eight writers (technically nine) to read stories at Cu Ju, a rum bar in the hutongs owned by the somewhat legendary Badr Benjelloun, who paired each writer with a rum. The result was glorious. Alec graciously allowed us to record the entirety of that event, which we now present to you as an episode of The Creamcast.
China's one-child policy, enacted in 1979, has undoubtedly changed Chinese society. Whether for better -- curbing population growth in a country with dire resource limitations -- or for worse -- creating a generation of "Little Emperors" who are doted on by two generations of extended family -- remains a debate that may never been settled. Of course, there are places where this debate can both be stimulating and appropriate. In the context of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is not one of those places.
We publicized a Kickstarter on April 1 of a 10-minute dystopian sci-fi film set in Beijing by TED Talks director Jason Wishnow that was advertised as "starring" Ai Weiwei. It blew past its $33,000 goal in no time, probably thanks to the attention that Ai Weiwei -- China's most visible artist -- garners around the world. But now the Kickstarter has been removed and the preview for the movie, The Sandstorm, is only available on YouTube. What gives?
