The people huddled at the front gates of the US Embassy in Beijing last November were not there to protest the flight of US bombers over contested islands in the East China Sea. Instead, they chanted slogans such as, “Beat down corruption!” and, “The Communist party doesn’t care about the common people!” Plainclothes police officers stood nearby, conspicuous in matching black and gray sweatpants. Read more »
Chen Guangbiao, fresh off handing out $100 bills "to suspicious New Yorkers," as the New York Post put it, has done a much greater, more charitable thing for all of us. Please watch the above video, in which he attempts to sing "We Are the World." Read more »
The above was tweeted out by @beidajin this afternoon: around 10 am today* outside the US embassy in Beijing, four grandmothers from Xinyang city, Henan province took off their clothes and raised signs "to cry out for sons and daughters." Read more »
Tao Na is aggressively trying to create a name for herself in the world of design. She is famous for using bricks, lights and pixel designs to craft outstanding mosaics. Read more »
In 2012 Liu Xiaodong was named the “most socially aware figure of the year” by Art Gallery magazine. He had just completed his Hotan Project in the deep south of Xinjiang. Utilizing his famously “plein air” method, Liu set up his giant life-sized canvases in the middle of a Hotan river floodplain and lived with Uyghur jade pickers. He spent the summer with them in the dust and the heat; in shelters made of stones and earth. In Art Gallery’s assessment of his project, he attempted to capture “the rhythms of people’s lives and the status of their survival.” Read more »
We're not sure whether Liu Yuxi is a certified reporter, but she's been assigned to CCTV studio commentary for this year's World Cup, and judging by her Sina Weibo account, she appears to be a huge homer for front-runners and generally popular teams such as Portugal, Brazil, and Argentina (Messi, specifically). But Ms. Liu saves her true passion for Italy, which we know because -- donning the Azzurri blue -- she broke down and sobbed on live television tonight following Italy's 1-0 loss to Uruguay. Read more »
Great Leap is opening a third location at No. 45-1 Xinyuan Jie, that street just inside Third Ring near Liangmaqiao. Segue: we're still taking submissions for Flash Fiction for Charity, and of course, reservations. Come for a fun afternoon and great cause. Read more »
Growing up, Driver Wang’s father thought him a momma’s boy. “Send him to play outside more,” he complained. “The kid needs to get into some scrapes.” Little did Wang Hu know, his son had been through six lifetimes of scrapes. He’d been castrated by a sorceress, strangled by a lover, beaten by roving pirates, and tortured by Red Guards. Yet in his current life as a Beijing taxi driver, Driver Wang is unaware of this -- until a mysterious letter falls from his taxi’s visor one day. Read more »
I'm not saying green Hulk doesn't resemble Pele, but did no one at the Global Times consider Brazil has a current player who's actually named Hulk and looks like this? Read more »
Hong Qi discovered Bob Dylan in 2001. That was the year he heard "The Answer Is Blowing in the Wind" for the first time. Speaking in an interview a decade later, he said he liked Dylan's confidence -- the feeling he evoked with his broken voice. Although Hong Qi says his English is "very bad," the imagery in Dylan's lyrics touched him deeply.
Over the past decade, he says he has become a Dylan fan. “I like all his songs, his fascination with all images. I respect his political stance. My songwriting is influenced by him.” Read more »
Perhaps you've heard, but we're organizing a community flash fiction event on Sunday, July 13 at Great Leap Brewing's Original No. 6 location, and we're seeking writers who want to read their work. All you have to do is submit an original piece of fiction between 500-700 words on the theme of "Beijing" to fiction@beijingcream.com before July 4; we'll pick at least five people to read. How easy is this? Let us demonstrate. Read more »
The Uyghur Chinese musician and poet Hong Qi celebrated his 41st birthday on May 6. He doesn’t know if that day was really his birthday. He said his mother just guessed. There is a lot that Hong Qi doesn’t know about his origins: he is one of those rare Uyghurs who grew up thinking he was Han. Read more »
The nature of charity in China is changing. In the last decade, both international organizations and domestic groups have shifted from relying on donation drives to providing more complex cultural services to meet the specific needs of disadvantaged groups.
But finding the right way to go about charitable projects remains a tough question for many. Read more »
So, before I begin, I guess I should get one thing out of the way: I write that show that all expats seem to hate but Chinese people seem to like – see the sketch I wrote about potatoes.
Yes, of course you could no doubt do it better; and yes, I agree, why do they even bother employing us? We’re not even funny. Now that I’ve saved you the hassle of leaving those sentiments in the comments section, I’ll get to the nitty gritty. Read more »
Found on Ai Weiwei's Instagram feed, here's what some cool kids are up to: "hand-held guns," they call it. There are some uncanny resemblances to The Red Detachment of Women, the famous Chinese ballet that debuted in 1964... Read more »
