There's little chance Max Baucus, the incoming US ambassador to China, will make an entrance quite like Gary Locke's in 2011. Locke, the departing US ambassador, nearly broke Weibo when he journeyed from Seattle to Beijing in coach, carried his own luggage, then bought his own coffee. Writing in China Daily, Chen Weihua contrasted Locke’s trip with the travel styles of Chinese government officials: “In China, even a township chief, which is not really that high up in the hierarchy, will have a chauffeur and a secretary to carry his bag.” Read more »
In the wake of the horrific violence in Kunming, Uyghurs around the country have taken to Chinese-language social media to create distance between themselves and the killing of the innocent. The celebrity of Uyghur-Han ethnic friendship, the Guizhou kebab-seller-turned-philanthropist Alimjan (A-li-mu-jiang), put it best. Echoing the massively popular Indian-American film My Name is Khan, Alimjan said, “My name is Jiang and I am not a terrorist.” Many people also expressed empathy with those who experienced personal loss and pain on March 1 by writing on their WeChat accounts, “We are all Kunming people today.” Read more »
Posted just last week to Vimeo (password duihua), The Dialogue is a film by Wang Wo that looks at the Chinese government’s increasingly restrictive policies toward non-governmental contact between minority groups (specifically Tibetan and Uyghur) and Han Chinese. The film centers on an attempt by Chinese intellectuals and human rights lawyers to make contact with the Dalai Lama. Read more »
It's okay, we've all been there. Maybe not in the middle of a train on Beijing Subway Line 1, but... we all know the feeling. No one is here to judge. Read more »
If you only gave Yang Shufeng’s engraving prints a short glance, his work would come off as a confused mess.
The chaotic lines and objects seem to purposefully confound whatever message Yang hopes to send. But in that confusion lies the real message: one of depression, anger, disappointment, and rebellion. Read more »
The above, posted 17 hours ago to Youku, purportedly shows a female attacker being captured on the night of the Kunming Railway Station massacre that left at least 29 dead and more than 140 injured. Read more »
