The Atlantic is running an ongoing series called “Scenes From 21st-Century China,” in which it seeks to show the PRC is a “vast, dynamic nation that continues to grow and evolve.” (We last posted about this in June.) Its latest installment, published Monday, features 42 stunning hi-res images that go a long way toward accomplishing that... Read more »Read more »
Ed’s note: Today marks the BJC premiere of the webcomic Laowai Comics. We’ll be debuting LC’s Thursday cartoon every week at around this time, always after the jump. You’ll also find a link to LC’s Monday cartoon at the bottom of the post. Needless to say, we’re incredibly happy and excited to have this talented... Read more »Read more »
If there's anyone in China who might understand what it means to parody something -- actually, truly parody, and not just copy or co-opt -- it's Ai Weiwei. He's an artist, you know. Who better than he to skewer China's nouveau riche and be this country's answer to PSY? You think Gangnam, South Korea is a district of gross decadence and put-on fakery? Read more »
Via Daily Mail: “The 300ft spiral staircase has been installed on the wall of the Taihang Mountains in Linzhou to offer the thrill of mountaineering without the danger.” We’re very excited and proud to announce that starting tomorrow morning, Laowai Comics will be appearing on this site every Thursday. If you’re wondering whether you should... Read more »Read more »
Longtime China resident Cam MacMurchy, who ran the well-respected Zhongnanhai blog for several years before co-founding The Nanfang earlier this year, is nothing if not a reasonable and fair writer. We’ve watched from afar as The Nanfang, a community-driven website covering the Pearl River Delta, has steadily grown, expanding its listings every week while continuing to produce interesting... Read more »Read more »
This story made us chuckle. Via Global Times: According to a report on the Taiwan-based NOWnews website, the man surnamed Luo, 27, is an engineer in Hsinchu, and the woman surnamed Lin, 21, lives in New Taipei City. // Luo and Lin became acquainted in an Internet chat room at the end of last year. // In... Read more »Read more »
Ai Weiwei + Instagram + Gangnam Style = This Inevitability. No context necessary. We never would have pictured him doing PSY’s famous dance with friends in any other way. This deserves to be turned into a caption contest. Picture by XuYe1226, via @aiww. Read more »
The sickening footage of child abuse in a Guangzhou kindergarten earlier this month has itself a sequel. On October 15, a teacher at Blue Sky Mentesuoli Kindergarten, an unlicensed school in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, lost her temper and struck three children, as caught on tape (above, and after the jump on 56.com for those in China). One... Read more »Read more »
What exactly is the price of life? What’s the price of life if one has no money? And what’s life actually worth if it’ll just be filled with pain and suffering? These are all questions that have haunted philosophers for millennia, and everyday citizens since the start of the modern medical era. In China, one... Read more »Read more »
At the third and final presidential debate on Monday, Governor Mitt Romney backed off claims he made in the previous debate to go hard on China. But as New Yorker's Evan Osnos notes, "But in China, to be frank, nobody takes it all that seriously. Romney’s tack toward the middle in his final debate (a theme that my colleague John Cassidy explores in his post today) seemed to foreshadow to a Chinese audience the kind of softening that is consistent with a pattern that has run through three decades of American foreign policy: candidates who rail against China on the stump rarely follow through if they win, because China stops being a convenient foil and becomes instead a complicated reality." Read more »
