On the top floor of the Aq Saray, or White Palace, hotel in Ürümchi is a massive reproduction of Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David. It is flanked on its left by a reproduction of Ivan Kramskoi’s Portrait of an Unknown Woman (which everyone associates with Anna Karenina). Across the expansive red room, otherwise decorated in the style of a Russian tea room, gigantic reproductions of Venetian canals and cityscapes fill out the walls. Overhead murals of clouds, star constellations, and pheasants in flight glow against the ornate heavy white archways that surround them.
Initially many Uyghurs were excited about the Uyghur photographer Qurbanjan Semet’s book-length photo essay I am from Xinjiang on the Silk Road. They were thrilled to see Qurbanjan’s national primetime interview on CCTV News. They were astonished to see it translated into English (by Wang Chiying) and sold alongside Xi Jinping’s boilerplate biography at Book... Read more »
A woman in Heilongjiang province -- accurately described by our Beijing Blend host as "North of the Wall" -- was walking her dog off its leash when a college-age student kicked it. The ensuing tussle saw some ear-biting, Mike-Tyson-style, and a fight worthy of this episode of Beijing Blend.
Captain Beijing is a "comical strip" produced by the People's Committee of Panel-Based Cartoon Cultural Enrichment for the purposes of modest entertainment. It is famous and popular at home and abroad, and was solemnly declared "Most Charming and Splendid China Cartoon Art." It will appear on this website every Monday, or the cartoonist will be punished.
“Thanks to the hyper-paranoid system, authorities are doing themselves further disservice by fighting another fire online, badly.” The Oriental Star ferry “disaster management” model, in which the goon squad manages to seize control of the information spigot early on and develops the subsequent narrative, is not the “new normal” in China that some may have... Read more »
Captain Beijing is a "comical strip" produced by the People's Committee of Panel-Based Cartoon Cultural Enrichment for the purposes of modest entertainment. It is famous and popular at home and abroad, and was solemnly declared "Most Charming and Splendid China Cartoon Art." It will appear on this website every Monday, or the cartoonist will be punished.
Sina Weibo's watershed came in 2011 after two high-speed trains crashed in Wenzhou: as officials bungled the response, and then censored news stories, netizens stormed onto Sina's microblogging platform to voice their outrage and fill gaps of knowledge with educated speculation. Four years later, just as Weibo has seemingly run its course, a different program is stepping into its place as the prime facilitator of unfettered discussion in this country of shackled exchange.
Tianjin was woken last night by a massive warehouse explosion that killed at least 44 and injured 500 others -- numbers which will surely rise in the coming days. As authorities investigate the cause -- was it arson? -- we sit here sifting through some amazing photos and videos of the incident. You may have seen some of these already. But they're worth another look.
As heard on social media, there was a stabbing this morning outside the Uniqlo in Sanlitun, one of the busiest areas of foot traffic and commerce in Beijing. Police appear to have subdued the assailant and roped off the area.
Captain Beijing is a "comical strip" produced by the People's Committee of Panel-Based Cartoon Cultural Enrichment for the purposes of modest entertainment. It is famous and popular at home and abroad, and was solemnly declared "Most Charming and Splendid China Cartoon Art." It will appear on this website every Monday, or the cartoonist will be punished.
