The Animated Feature Everyone Wants To See

Big Fish & Chinese Flowering Crabapple featured image
It’s not every day that a Chinese animated film manages to secure more than 1 million yuan in funding. It’s even rarer that that money comes from the crowd. But 3,596 backers saw promise in Big Fish & Chinese Flowering Crabapple, a new film by Liang Xuan. Enough promise that they donated 1.58 million yuan over 45 days on Demohour. It now holds the title of China’s most successful crowd-funded project to date. Read more »

Meme Thursday: Censorship, Human Rights, And Xi Yang Yang

Trapped
Showcasing the best in Asian-related memes. Above via China Media Project: "Following a report in December 2013 by the Beijing News about poor migrants living in underground wells in the capital’s Chaoyang District because they could not afford housing there, local authorities sent teams to seal the well entrances with concrete." Read more »

Dispatches From Xinjiang: Sufi Poetry And The Uyghur Justin Bieber

Sufi Poetry and the Uyghur Justin Beiber 2
The Uyghur-language songs of teen heartthrob Ablajan Awut Ayup run on a loop through the heads of many Uyghur tweens and young urbanites. Taking cues from Justin Bieber, the ever-popular dance moves of the late-Michael Jackson, and the pretty-gangster affect of Korean pop stars, Ablajan is a self-styled chart-climber; he is a self-made song-and-dance man. Whether you love him or hate him, the fact remains that he has cornered the Uyghur children’s music market by tying clever songwriting with catchy beats. Read more »

Evan Osnos: “China Is Gradually Losing Interest In Soft Power”

China's new generation of leaders
Why is China threatening to expel foreign correspondents? Old-fashioned intimidation, says the New Yorker's Evan Osnos, still writing incisively in absentia. (A lesson for you, China: journalists can churn even when they don't live here.) His latest analysis of China's ongoing crackdown on media is worth a complete read, but let us highlight this paragraph: Read more »