Ah, music festival season in China. With the balmy climes and fluffy white cottonwood pollen comes the annual rumor mill about which bold-faced recording artists are slated to perform at the summertime’s numerous annual kickoff events, which have been denied performance permits, and general conspiratorial grumblings about why this is and who's to blame.
Three Shots With Beijing Cream is weekly series in which local personalities are interviewed over shots. New episodes are posted every Sunday; if you would like to nominate a future guest, please get in touch. Produced and directed by Gabriel Clermont and Anthony Tao.
We caught wind of Morgan Short's imminent arrival to Beijing last summer, with our informant adding without equivocation that Smart Shanghai, of which Morgan is the chief editor, was the best expat website of its kind.
Ed's note: Welcome to BJC's newest weekly series, Three Shots With, in which we interview local personalities over shots. New episodes are posted every Sunday; if you would like to nominate a future guest, please get in touch. Produced and directed by Gabriel Clermont and Anthony Tao.
George Ding, the Beijinger's backpage columnist, catapulted to notortiety last fall
Before we get started, let me say this: If you’re one of those who reflexively shits on anyone and everyone in the education industry in China, let’s just get the hate all out of the way. Yes, there are those who deserve the world’s flung feces because they are your stereotypical loser-back-home/asshole-backpacker laowai who drinks... Read more »
Normal expat whining is grating and graceless, but let’s face it: it has its roots in something that we can all identify with.
China takes a lot out of you, demands a lot of you at times. Sure, there are those skating by with an absurd income-to-work ratio, people to whom China is a paid vacation punctuated by occasional encounters with the indigenous people who for some reason haven’t learned to speak English. But in any expat experience, there are certain unavoidable facts of life: you’re often out of your comfort zone, ostracized or just generally unable to make things happen.
One thing I learned about getting invited to a the Beijinger awards ceremony is you first have to leave Beijing. During my four-year tenure here, I never received an invite. Just three months after I made the move to Hangzhou, I was chosen to be an official nominator. Sure, why not. Months later, as an... Read more »
The Chinese Basketball Association playoffs got underway Wednesday, and to discuss the teams and break down the matchups, we’ve invited the foremost English-speaking CBA expert, Jon Pastuszek, who runs the excellent NiuBBall. Our questions to him are in bold.
Years of occasionally reading the Beijinger has finally paid off: the magazine has published its funniest piece ever, and they didn’t even have to write it. Take it away, boys: We are back with a new short story contest… Lord have mercy. You have 140 characters to play with… They had mercy!
At the end of every year, the meejah publish lists: what's what, what's hot, what's not, what's frot -- y'know, "Top 10 Worst Celebrity Red Carpet Frock Horrors!" and other such high-water marks for journalism.
But being lazy and living in China, we thought we'd wait until the end of the Dragon Year to do something similar. And seeing as we're cheeky and crass, we thought we'd take a slightly different approach.
