Ladies and gentlemen, we have Jiang Zemin – “the elder.”

Jiang Zemin was a pretty popular president in his own time. Though not without criticism, his term marked a breaking point in the widespread reforms that would go on to define the successes of post-Cultural Revolution China. By today’s standards, Jiang could be called conservative, but in the early 90s when he came into power, he was a revolutionary. His China in the 1990s was in many ways more liberal than it is now. Jiang Zemin was a powerful and respected president, but today the 91-year-old man, still very much alive, is reborn as a meme beacon of hope to China’s millennials.

Younger Chinese have adopted the leader as a beloved character of their own, despite not being old enough to clearly remember his presidency. Grainy video clips are enough to document the ex-leader’s unscripted public persona (a trait unmatched by perhaps any party official to come before or after him). In the clip above, Jiang scolds a reporter for asking if China’s elite had personally selected Hong Kong’s next president. Jiang rises to his feet and marches straight to the camera, in order to deliver a riveting oral address in three languages. He asks the reporters why they can’t be more like CNN’s Mike Wallace, whose company Jiang says he enjoyed very much. I’m speaking to you as an elder, he tells them, unwittingly generating his eternal nickname. He tells them they must raise their journalistic standards, then switches into English to denounce their questions as too simple… sometimes naïve!

Given the otherwise standard history of CCCP leaders as either cold pragmatists or calculated androids of Communist ideology, Jiang Zemin’s animated, genuine demeanor is a welcome breath of fresh air. It would be natural to write this outburst off as a one-time kind of occurrence. We’re happy to tell you, it’s not. In different videos Jiang can be found waltzing with the French president’s wife, playing the ukulele for a crowd of onlookers, and singing Elvis tunes.

Jiang Zemin pulls out a comb to fix his hair at a meeting with the Spanish king

The unlikely cult of personality that’s grown around Jiang is called moha (膜蛤), or toad-worship, referencing the leader’s admittedly amphibian features. Toad lovers who admire Jiang will use his most famous phrases frequently, and quickly bond with anyone who can respond with a Jiang Zemin quote of their own.

In China, though, even something as innocuous and positive as praising one of the country’s significant leaders is not so simple. In recent years, searches for Jiang’s name have become increasingly censored. Part of it had to do with a surge of untrue rumors about his death (remember, he is still alive). Really, the central government in Beijing doesn’t want people talking about politics at all, but searches for Jiang’s name are especially obscured in the context of Xi Jinping’s presidency. He and Jiang were political rivals, and there’s speculation among the people in China that Xi’s crackdown on corruption serves the secondary purpose of removing Jiang Zemin supporters from the party’s ranks, which falls in line with further speculation that Xi might attempt to stay on for an unprecedented third term.

Connections have been drawn between the beloved toad Jiang and another froggy figure who stands between the worlds of politics and internet memes: Pepe. The cartoon frog rose to a position of holding actual political influence when he was adopted as symbol of the alt-right during last year’s American election. Pepe went from a crude drawing circulating on message boards to a figure of political weight. Jiang Zemin looks like he might one-up the situation, going from a major political figure to a meme, and thereby back to a major influence on the digital generation that’s building tomorrow’s China.

One toad lover explained his own love of Jiang:

“I think it’s hard to pinpoint one reason for the phenomenon. I think it’s just his personality – his behavior is so different from the other Chinese leaders, especially Hu Jintao or Xi Jinping. They’re more contained, more restrained, very careful with their words. Also, the younger people didn’t really live through his period, so that contributes to the mystique around him.”

It’s 2017 and memes have actual power now. Jiang Zemin’s unlikely rise to internet superstardom could very well have an effect on the next generation of China’s leaders – he really was one-of-a-kind in the country’s history. In the meantime, we’ll leave you with these nonsense memes.

Per usual, no idea about post frequency, etc. But there it is. We’ve entered the cashless society!

This latest China-based production of the comedy is not about money, stars, or even an Expat in Chinese Film and TV Award: It’s about the art. To learn more, and help shift some tickets, Beijing Cream had a quick chat with the cast of this 90-minute modernist comedy about “three people losing their shit over a painting” (curtains rise 7.30pm on Thursday; tickets 100 kuai).

Beijing Cream: (stroking chin) So why Art?

Carlos Ottery (actor, Yvan): A screenwriter pal of mine, Peter, wanted to direct the play in Beijing a few years ago but it fell through, as these things often do… putting it on at has been at the back, the very back, of my mind for quite a while.

Gregory Joseph Allen (director/actor, Marc) From the very beginning this has really been all about a small group of like-minded artists falling in love with a script and wanted to share it with others. Oh, and chicks dig theatre nerds… they do, right? Right? I hope that I didn’t just waste three months of my life. Shit.

BJC: Why are there so few small indie productions, like Art, in Beijing?

CO: Money. Unless you are talking about a big Broadway-style show or a particularly commercial performance, theatre makes bugger-all cash. These days a lot of people in Beijing are in things for the money alone…People prefer to lose 10 million dollars on a film that will never get made, or to watch something with Vin Diesel topless, and who can blame them for that.

The other thing is censorship, which seeps in everywhere. It effects everything: public discourse, books, TV, theatre. Who can be arsed putting on a good show, only to be told at the last minute that the censors want you to change things, due to some imagined sensitivity?

GJA: Because producing a play of any kind is really fucking hard to do, dude. I am only kind of kidding… There is just a lot involved in the putting-together of a play intended for public presentation, and unless you are really passionate about what you are doing, it’s hard to justify all of the time and work that it takes to get it done. Also, there are only so many theatre-loving expat actors in Beijing… Most of the quality actors that I know are trying to pay the bills by gigging in the local film and television market. They don’t really have the luxury of taking the time to do a play.

But is it Art? Greg’s knitted vest raises challenging questions

BJC: What are the cast’s theatrical bona fides – other than being three out-of-work chaps who can speak English?

CO: Ha. You have got me down. Even when I am gainfully employed, which I occasionally am, people still seem to think I am out of work. I think it something to do with the way I dress.

Greg is a good one to deconstruct. He played American football in his youth and he has that build, a cross between a drill sergeant and a bouncer. Yet at the same time, he strides around rehearsals quoting Shakespeare soliloquies… he lives and breathes theatre. He’s done hundreds of Equity performances, talks endlessly about Chekov and Stanislavsky, that sort of thing. Basically, if the show comes anywhere close to being remotely professional, then it is all down to him.

GJA: Stand back, bitches, and let the tootin’ begin… I have been acting for about 40 years. I have been in over 100 stage productions of one kind or another. I have a B.A. in Theatre Arts, and an M.F.A. in Theatre Arts: Acting and Directing. I have spent the last six years teaching theatre at Tsinghua International School, and since arriving in China I have had the pleasure of acting in several locally produced films [note Gregory’s role as “American Prick” in last year’s Jackie Chan-Jonny Knoxville flick Skiptrace– Ed]. And if you have ever wondered, yes, it is pretty fucking cool to see your big-ass head on an IMAX screen.

CO: Then there’s Sam [Kamanguza, who plays Serge]. A very cool character indeed. Ice-cold. My complete opposite on the stage. I’m all nerves, jangling around, barely able to stand still, and Sam will just stand opposite me and toss out his lines, like someone out of an old cowboy movie. Maybe inside he is all jittery and faking it, but I don’t think so. Funny too – has some great stories about guys in urinals standing next to him to, erm, check him out. Wonder how controlled he is then.  

BJC: Have you paid much attention to the recent Art revival in London?

CO: I saw the three ‘actors’ give an interview on Youtube. One of them was talking about what a great job he had done with his lines, and I remember thinking, ‘the smug git’ – only because I have had such a struggle with learning mine, obviously.

GJA: A couple of my colleagues had the pleasure of seeing it recently. They had nothing but praise for it. If we can deliver anything even near to what they are sharing on the east end, I would consider our production a success.

What particular relevance (if any) will Art hold for a Beijing audience?

CO: These days, China is famed for people paying millions of dollars on art of very questionable value. The play certainly taps into that. There’s also a lot of stuff about the getting rid of the old, to replace it with stuff that is ‘modern’, for no real reason other that the sake of it. I know Beijingers will be able to understand that.

For me the play is really about three blokes arguing to the death over something (seemingly trivial), simply because they have known each other for so long that they can. I think people can relate to that anywhere…

(L-R) Sam Kamanguza, Carlos Ottery and Gregory Joseph Allen play Serge, Yvan and Marc

BJC: What difficulties did you face mounting the play in China? Did you at any point find yourself wishing to punch a nearby wall?

CO: Getting ‘official approval was a problem… our producer was able to pull some strings with the relevant departments at the last minute and rush things through. Fortunately, three blokes losing their shit over a painting isn’t deemed a sensitive issue.

GJA: Producing a play anywhere usually produces a few “wall punch” worthy moments, but our process has been relatively stress free… I wouldn’t be surprised if we sent a few walls to the emergency room before it is all said and done.

CO: It’s put me off producing for life. When it is all over, am gonna switch off my phone, and spend a week in my bed doing nothing but drinking cider, and eating sandwiches. Whilst theatre is a mild passion, what I really like to do is make sandwiches. Recently, I have been experimenting with homemade shish kebabs. I get some lamb skewers from a local Xingjiang place, make my own chilli sauce, throw it in a tortilla from the supermarket: Less stressful than theatre production. And cheaper

A homemade kebab, courtesy of Carlos

ART runs from May 11-13, 7.30-9pm/ May 14, 2.30-4pm (100 RMB/ Students 70 RMB) at Penghao Theatre. Photo credits: Sophia Wong

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May 27 saw the gathering of several writers in The Bookworm for an event called Scotch and Stories, presented by the Anthill in collaboration with Whisky Wednesday and with support from Ai Whisky. We’re reliving that event in today’s podcast, timed with the last of those stories going online on the Anthill and The Bookworm’s launch of its new whisky menu.

The rundown:

5:10 mark: Anthony Tao with the poem “Whisky”

8:40: Daniel Tam-Claiborne story “Classifieds”

16:25: Tom Pellman story “Tiger Suit”

25:55: Karoline Kan story “The House by the River”

40:00: Kaiser Kuo story “The Hornèd Hand”

47:45: Kerryn Leitch with faux advice to laowai

55:10: Aaron Fox-Lerner story “Goodbye Joe”

The Creamcast would like to thank Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 20 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

|The Creamcast Archives|

Download podcast | Size: 65.1 MB

On March 21 as part of the Bookworm Literary Festival, Mark Natkin (founder and managing director of Marbridge Consulting), Kaiser Kuo (director of international relations at Baidu), and Josh Gartner (senior director of international relations at JD.com) sat down with Eric Jou for a panel discussion called Tech in China. They spoke on artificial intelligence, O2O, censorship, the market, and woolly mammoths — all of which you can listen to in this week’s episode.

Highlights:

13-minute-mark: Josh Gartner on Baidu’s IPO and the ecosystems available to start-ups now.

20:20: Kaiser on “success,” and whether that necessitates going abroad; be sure to catch his woolly mammoth analogy, which begins at 21:20.

27:40: Mark Natkin talks about Xiaomi and its advantages going into a market like India.

28:00: Eric Jou asks a question that touches on protectionism.

30-minute: Great Firewall… Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google…

Kaiser makes a defense of the plucky, small, versatile Chinese entrepreneur vs. “the manager” of bigger, established foreign companies that “never really stood much of a chance against the equally well funded, scrappy, incredibly hungry entrepreneurs.”

34:15: O2O in China, i.e. Online to Offline — specifically how China is leading the way.

42:30: Natkin on some of the amazing services that are available due to low cost of fulfillment: did you know you can call someone to come to you, wherever you’re at, to do your nails? Or have a chef shop and cook for you in your kitchen? (“iAyi,” as Kaiser quips.) Also: closing of inefficiency gaps, exemplified by taxi apps.

49:30: How to make technology smarter? What does the future hold?

There’s some unfortunate construction that interrupts the proceedings at the 5:30 mark, but then we closed the windows and it got better.

The Creamcast would like to thank Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 19 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

|The Creamcast Archives|

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JUE | Music + Art is an annual labor of love, a privately run, basically not-for-profit gathering of creatives in Beijing and Shanghai, with live performances, workshops, exhibitions, and talks. Founded in 2009 as a protest against “the big, homogenous mega-festivals emerging in China at that time,” JUE Festival has just concluded its 7th program, featuring acts from around the world.

Host Anthony Tao is joined by Morgan Short, editor of Smart Beijing / DJ-about-town, and JUE Festival organizers Sophia Pederson and Doris Yan, both project managers at Split Works, the China-based promotion company that puts on JUE, to talk about the challenges of organizing the festival, the highlights, and what exactly happened with the high-profile cancellation of Japanese rock band Boris (“sensitive climate”?).

Also, the story of Sontag Shogun, a Brooklyn ambient piano trio that was thrice cancelled: at Club XP (after Acid Mothers Temple lead singer Kawabata Makoto, who is banned in China, was unsuccessfully booked to play a show there), Zajia Lab, and another place. They did play, however, at School Bar and Bookworm; you can listen to a snippet of their performance in the interview below:

Toward the end of this week’s podcast, we preview another independently run, privately funded festival, the Bookworm Literary Festival, which is entering its final weekend of events.

The Creamcast would like to thank Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 18 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

Related Episodes: Episode 16, Bookworm Literary Festival preview; Episode 17, The Female Voice In Contemporary Chinese Art

|The Creamcast Archives|

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On February 5, 1989, at the opening of the China Avant-Garde Exhibition at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing, a young performance artist by the name of Xiao Lu fired two gunshots at her work, two telephone booths with figures engaged in conversation inside. Her act — part of the performance piece titled “Dialogue” — became synonymous with the exhibition, caused the entire show to be temporarily shut down, and contributed to her and her boyfriend’s arrest.

Madeline Eschenburg and Ellen Larson, both curators and students of Chinese contemporary art (and editors Open Ground Blog), are with us today to discuss this seminal moment in Chinese contemporary art. They are also the moderators of a Bookworm Literary Festival event on Sunday, March 29 called The Female Voice in Chinese Contemporary Art, a panel discussion featuring Philip Tinari, director of the Ullens Center of Contemporary Art in Beijing; Sun Shaokun, who explores her body in relation to nature; and the aforementioned Xiao Lu.

The panel was assembled by Mojdeh Shiek, a Bookworm Literary Festival organizer and special cohost of this episode, joining regular host Anthony Tao (disclosure: also a Bookworm Literary Festival organizer).

Together, they discuss issues ranging from live sex performances (art?) to the evolution of contemporary Chinese art (meaning?), from the “apartment art” of the 1990s to commercial art to art’s response to commercialism, and how the cycle is ever-fluid.

The Creamcast would like to thank Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 17 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

Related Episodes: Episode 16, Bookworm Literary Festival preview; Episode 18, JUE Festival

|The Creamcast Archives|

This Sunday at 2 pm at the Bookworm, as part of the 9th annual Bookworm Literary Festival, seven community poets will join two visiting writers/performers for Poetry Beijing, a celebration of verse and the power of the spoken word. But more importantly, it’ll be a spotlight for this community’s regular literary events and the people who run them. For example…

Liz Richards, co-host, organizes the monthly Word of Mouth series at the Bookworm, a poetry open mic that brings together experienced poets and newcomers alike.

Kassy Lee, a published poet, organizes events every two months in the Gulou area, including the unique series “Transmigrant Flow,” which has been described as “poetry speed dating.”

Anna Yates, who’s into performance art, represents Scratching Beijing, a performance platform for multidisciplinary artists.

Anthony Tao, who is probably writing this in third-person, hosted Poetry Night in Beijing at last year’s Literary Festival.

We’ve also invited published poet Edward Ragg, current Beijing International High School Slam champion Vanessa Meng, and the eccentric and wholly unique Elijah Grantham. The lineup’s diversity alone is compelling.

We’ll be joined by two visiting poets, Zohab Zee Khan — the current Australian Slam Poetry champion — and Maxine Beneba Clarke, a widely traveled Australian writer of Afro-Caribbean descent. Khan will have his own solo spoken-word show — Evident — at 8 pm on Sunday. Clarke’s solo performance, Nothing Here Needs Fixing, is on Tuesday at 8 pm.

And now, your chance to see everything for cheap(er): The Bookworm is offering a special deal for BJC readers: attendees of Poetry Beijing can buy tickets for either/both Khan and/or Clarke’s shows for half-price.

In addition, those who purchase a ticket for Clarke’s poetry workshop on Sunday (10 am) will get a free ticket to her solo performance AND a free ticket to either Poetry Beijing or Khan’s “Evident.” Your pick.

There’s a lot of poetry to enjoy this weekend, and we hope you make the most of it.

For a reminder of what Poetry Beijing was like last year, check out these posts.

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The 9th annual Bookworm Literary Festival kicks off on Friday, March 13, and this year’s lineup looks to be one of the most interesting ever. The guests on this week’s Creamcast certainly think so — they’re festival coordinators, after all — but don’t let their bias stop you from checking it out yourself.

Download the PDF of the full BLF program here.

Chang-rae Lee, Yasmina Khadra, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Willis Barnstone, Victoria Hislop, Michael Meyer… art, environment, journalism, comedy, trivia… and so much more. Where do we start?

May we suggest… with this episode? Host Anthony Tao and his Bookworm Literary Festival colleagues Thomas Price, Mojdeh Shiek, and Julia Lobyntseva offer a run-down of the program, point out events that shouldn’t be overlooked, and muse on what makes the Bookworm Literary Festival — one of the world’s few international literary festivals run mostly out of a bookshop — so special.

The Creamcast would like to thank Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 16 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

Related Episodes: Episode 17, The Female Voice In Contemporary Chinese Art; Episode 18, JUE Festival

|The Creamcast Archives|

China’s 2014 was a year of protests, tigers and flies, tilted fruit trucks, pandas, and censorship. Come to think of it, so was 2013. But not everything about last year was the same. Take these 10 longreads that first appeared on this site, well worth revisiting, among our favorite posts of 2014.

1. One Beijing Summer: A Tale Of Status, Sex, And A Chinese Pop Star

By Hannah Lincoln | Read full post

On a crisp September 1st morning in Beijing, I stood before a locked iron door. On the other side was a hutong that led to the streets and eventually my university dorm. On my side was a scruffy courtyard home, a room with no couch and only one big bed – on which slept my Chinese boyfriend. It was dawn, and the hutong roofs were limned by a light morning mist, releasing the heat of the night into a new day. Inside, I was trapped, faced with an undesirable decision: to take a hammer to the door, or to return to the bed and have sex with a person I no longer respected.

2. China’s Bill O’Reilly, Sima Nan, Is Now Pro-Free Speech, Anti-Moron

By Valentina Luo | Read full post

From left to right: Sima Nan, Zhou Xiaoping, and Fang Zhouzi

The talk of the Chinese Internet has been the overnight elevation of a new leader to the wumao ranks, “online writer” Zhou Xiaoping. Zhou reportedly was invited to attend a Forum on Art and Literature on October 15 held by “Uncle” Xi Jinping, where he posted a rather blurry selfie that featured the chairman in the background. That he wasn’t wrestled to the ground indicated Zhou’s star was in the ascendancy.

3. Did Ken Livingstone Crony and Anti-Occupy Spokesman John Ross “Censor” the Global Times?

By RFH | Read full post

Ross, meanwhile, is a loyal toady of the new world order. The Marxist economist is so committed to serving the people that, back in 2004, he gracefully accepted a massive salary of £110,000 – more than the then-Mayor of New York – as one of “Red” Ken Livingstone’s closest crony-advisors. (The post was not advertised, which might have struck even Tony Blair as rather non-egalitarian.)

4. Hong Kong Protests Surge Amid Growing Tension, Falling And Rising Barricades

By Anthony Tao | Read full post

Above on the overpasses, pedestrians peered at the action below, snapping pictures as if at a zoo. Underneath Pacific Place, in the Admiralty subway station, a poster extolled “New rail lines for a better Hong Kong” while advertisements cycled between Calvin Klein models and McDonald’s burgers. All the way home via public transport, we heard no chatter about the protests, which seemed to exist in a different realm altogether, a small but significant part of the city that created its own vortex while everyone else went about their day, now night, undisturbed by visions of democracy or the prospect of economic disenfranchisement.

5. I Nearly Lost A Testicle In A Beijing Hospital

By Bryce Lewis | Read full post

Die? How do balls just die? I refused to believe it. This wasn’t serious, nothing a little ice couldn’t solve. These Chinese doctors just wanted to rob the clueless foreigner. I called my sole Beijing friend, Lisi, to get a second opinion. She listened to me choke through tears, then told me she was too busy to come right away but would make some calls.

6. Deep Trouble: On The Set Of China’s Most Expensive, Possibly Worst Film (Part 1)

By Dale Irons | Read full post

After a brief reading, we were asked if we had any “fighting or action experience.” Yes: tons. For my friend — built like a tank with a voice so deep he was actually able to bass you out of a conversation — this wasn’t actually so far from the truth, although the acting was mostly of the “fucking and fighting” variety, in assorted bars and clubs. With my shoulder-length hair and somewhat effete manner, I cringed at the thought of a demonstration of such skills. Luckily, they took my word for it.

7. Chinese Version Of “The Wolf Of Wall Street” Is The Blockbuster That Will Never Be Made

By Warner Brown | Read full post

I was watching the movie for a second time – still puzzling as to why my initial viewing so enthralled me – when a random manager (or someone claiming to be such) added me on WeChat, China’s red-hot mobile messaging app. As I gazed upon Leonardo DiCaprio’s character enjoying a three-way, I fended off the manager’s requests for explicit photos to prove I was man enough to do the same. Finally, I made the connection: in spirit, if not quite in the details, The Wolf of Wall Street embodies the hidden, hedonistic thrill that drives so much of China’s official corruption.

8. Watching The Hong Kong Protests Inside China Central Television

By J. Stevens | Read full post

A CNN reporter stood live from Central Square in Hong Kong amid a sea of students wearing plastic coverings over their eyes and mouths. I had kept up with the story, having seen pictures like this on my Facebook newsfeed for the past several days, mostly from Hong Kong friends who were proud of the protesters and shocked at the sudden intensity of the police response. But I realized this must have been the first time many of my colleagues had seen these images.

9. Dispatches From Xinjiang: Shiralijan’s Fist And The Xinjiang Spirit

By Beige Wind | Read full post

He punched the air with his right hand while his left hand grabbed his bicep. Relating the gesture to the semiotics on the Uyghur countryside where he’s from, most Uyghur onlookers immediately interpreted the gesture as a “fuck you” to the crowd that had been chanting “East Turkistan stupid cunt,” or “DongTu shabi,” for the past three days. According to some Uyghur observers, Shiralijan was reacting as any self-respecting minority might to targeted ethnic slurs.

10. The Great Wall Of China As Sunken Treasure

By Christina Lauritsen | Read full post

The Wall pokes out of the water to form small islands, giving us a couple of reference points. However, they’d be useless once our masks slipped below the surface. The first five meters was entirely particulate matter and there was no visibility — this is apparently consistent for any time of year. Once below the silt, we were hit by the abrupt cold and absolute blackness. The only light came from our torches. Not a drop of sunlight penetrated the silt and algae above us. It was like entering another world, with all our senses altered — nothing came into focus until we spotted the Wall.

POSTSCRIPT:

Here’s to a great 2015.

Some of you have rightly wondered what’s happened to the Cream – no thrice-weekly links, no videos of stupid people falling out of buildings, no reminders that traffic violations can (hilariously, tragically) happen, etc. What’s going on? The simple answer is, after taking a summer break, we’ve decided that the landscape of the English-language “Chinese” Internet has become both wearily homogenized and sufficiently pluralistic for us to take a step sideways. It’s transition time.

There are now more sites than ever offering news aggregation, some fallen heroes (as usual), and more “niche” sites providing authentic news from across the Chinese diaspora. How to remain original and amusing, while not churning out five posts a day (yes, we have actual livelihoods to manage), is the question. And we’re still figuring it out, so if you’re still with us, we thank and salute you.

The vague plan is to keep providing regular columns like Beige Wind’s Dispatches from Xinjiang while doubling down on fresh, occasionally irreverent content you won’t find elsewhere. Whether that be longform treatment of non-mainstream subjects or rants and raves, we’ll be keeping a bemused eye on the people and events that make Beijing what it is, from its ever-revolving foreign press corps to its ambitious, Quixotic entrepreneurs and politicians to its coteries of hilarious and tragic personalities. We’d also like to do more events — fiction, poetry… beer-drinking? etc. — information of which will be duly posted.

What does that mean for you, reader? Nothing really. Please continue following us on Twitter and Facebook, and swing by the comment section now and then to let us know what you think (your feedback, while sometimes exasperating, has more often been honest and constructive, and we’ll humor the intermittent troll as long as this continues to be the case). As always, we ask for nothing and expect nothing in return. Anything we receive exceeding that will be humbly appreciated.

p.s. We are always open to story ideas, pitches, and inquiries. Get in touch at tips@beijingcream.com.

Er… what?

Described by one excited attendee as “the stupidest, most Z-list thing ever… a fake award ceremony with fake red carpet,” the “expat Oscars” (as no one is calling it) was hosted by this nubile pair:

On the right is Mark Regan, a “Weatherman Anchor” at CCTV. (Mark’s previous role was “Import / Export Manager at Beijing W&G Trading Co,” so TV was the obvious next step.) His co-host is Shenzhen TV’s Yue Xu.

Other expat luminaries going viral on the interwebs are “uprising actor Greg Schroeder” (video apparently exists)

Greg, tell us about your uprising

“Mr. Albania Rolando Lekja”

So, you’re Mr. Albania – or your first name is Albania? It’s confusing

“Well-known actor Ludi Lin” (whose credits include The Shannon Entrophy)

When Ludi proposes, you say YES (or you don’t get your hand back)

And Frank from This is Sanlitun, who apparently turned up in character. Awesome do-rag.

Did you know Frank’s real name is Chris?

Our source told us, “Everyone seemed nice ­– it was all just a little bit sad.” And how. No Cao Cao; not even Carlos Ottery? Saaaaad.

Were you a guest at the Expats in Chinese Film and TV Awards? Did you win an award? Please do not get in contact with us.

We’re two days away from Flash Fiction for Charity at Great Leap Brewing’s Original No. 6 (friendly emphasis: that’s the courtyard/hutong location). The doors will open at 2:30 pm, with the event kicking off shortly thereafter. If you’re interested in a seat, we have just a few spots still available for reservation: please email fiction@beijingcream.com. (We’ll also take walk-ups, but you might have to stand/lean.) The 50 RMB ticket gets you a free beer, with all proceeds going to Educating Girls of Rural China.

Over the past week, judges read 29 anonymized entries and did the agonizing deed of choosing only five. All the caveats of these sort of subjective appraisals apply here: don’t be disheartened if your submission was not chosen. Be the opposite: we’re hoping a vibrant crowd of fiction lovers will gather this Sunday; we already know representatives from several fiction circles in town (a reading group, at least two writing groups, an online writers colony, etc) will be present, so let’s mingle and have fun.

While we had to choose five readers, how happy we are that these are our five:

• William Wang, The Antecedents of a Rodent
• Daniel Tam-Claiborne, If Not for the Melon
• Qing Qing Chen, Reckoning
• Rosalyn Shih, Taishan No. 20
• Jacques Qu, Delivery

In addition, Kaiser Kuo – rock star, Sinica host — will be reading a story about a dishwasher’s coming-of-age in early-90s Beijing, and Susan Barker will be reading an excerpt from her acclaimed novel The Incarnations.

We’ll have two more posts before the event, including a Q-and-A with an EGRC advisor and some mini-profiles of the readers. For now, here are the first lines of the winning entries:

The Antecedents of a Rodent. “I had a dream last night. Mother says rats don’t dream, but I do.”

If Not for the Melon. “We discussed it, and after a time decided on the watermelon.”

Reckoning. “The faintings started on the subway.”

Taishan No. 20. “I didn’t smoke my first real cigarette until I was twenty-five.”

Delivery. “6 AM, I wake up on my upper bunk in the company dormitory with a lingering happiness from a dream.”

Flash Fiction for Charity is July 13, 2:30 pm at GLB Original No. 6. Direct all inquiries to fiction@beijingcream.com.

Time to meet the official Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympics mascot – Nanjing LeLe, the meaty-tongued phallus.

According to the organizers of this August event, one of his favorite foods is duck blood and vermicelli soup, he’s a Sagittarius with Type O blood, and his least favorite thing to do is “play alone.”

From the Youth Olympic’s Website:

The mascot of Nanjing 2014 “NANJINGLELE” derives from a prestigious specialty of the host city, known as the “riverstone.” The graphic design of the mascot takes an imitation of the typical shape and appearance of this stone but in a creative and artistic way in purpose of catering to the youth’s taste, and meanwhile, highlights the colors from the emblem’s palette to achieve good congruity with the other brand elements.

Leaves me to wonder how foul China’s rivers have to be to birth four-limbed, tie-dyed stones. And If this does seriously cater to the “youth’s tastes,” I’d say our future is pretty seriously fucked.

Look:

God save us all. This is why background checks on firearms should be mandatory. Who in their right mind would give a shotgun to this speed freak? Just look at those electric eyes and that meth mouth, not a single tooth saved from rot. My guess is he’s looking to crank up some Skynyrd and beat down the stepkids. This is one scary sausage.

And here he (it?) is with his trusted steed and six-shooter, off to the Kashgar Corral. I’m your Huckleberry:

B&E Lele. Fu’erdai, check your Ferraris. He’s up to nefarious shit with this crowbar:

Swiiiiiiish:

On his Special Schwinn:

His Heisman trophy better be sequined:

Nanjing is the host city of the International Olympic Committee’s Second Summer Youth Olympic Games, August 16-28. The slogan is “Share the Games, Share our Dreams, Share the LSD.”

Eleanor Goodman wraps up our Poetry Night in Beijing series. Stick around for some fiction next month.

Previously: Edward Ragg

Full playlist:

|Poetry Night in Beijing Archives|