For those of you who have been watching, The Sound Stage has been working in a "series within a series" every other episode or so since last November, featuring bands from our trip to Wuhan. AV Okubo is the last of those bands. Read more »
It takes a bit of commitment to get to Three Shadows Photography Centre, which, outside Fifth Ring Road, counts as "far outside the city." And once you arrive, you very well could get lost on the train tracks before finally coming to the main building. But there's a simple answer to the question of whether it's worth journeying out there to check out the current exhibition: yes. Read more »
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. Read more »
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! Read more »
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. Read more »
This week's selection from Poetry Night in Beijing, hosted on March 16 with Pathlight Magazine for Bookworm Literary Festival: Peter Behr, as selected and introduced by Helen Wing. Read more »
Although the use of hashish has been a part of the Uyghur pharmacopeia for centuries, drugs appear to have become a widespread problem for Uyghurs in the early 1990s. It was only then that young men in their twenties began dying of overdoses and needle-borne disease. As Ilham Tohti mentioned in 2011, in the intervening decades drugs, along with theft, pickpocketing, trafficking, and prostitution, “have gotten so bad that our entire ethnic group is suddenly perceived as a crime-prone community.” These are issues which Uyghurs discuss among themselves and feel embarrassed about when they are raised among outsiders. Read more »
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. Read more »
