Jottings from the Granite Studio

I’ve said this numerous times, but Brett’s blog from Beijing is one of the THE best and most consistently interesting windows in to the wacky world of Zhongguo. If you haven’t been there recently, you must check out his photo of a Qingdao beach during the beer festival.
His most recent post is a link to [...]

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If the perjorative term to describe the peculiar affliction suffered by a person of European or American descent who dates exclusively people from Asia is “Yellow Fever,” would the corresponding ‘diagnosis’ for an Asian who dates a lot of white people be 白血病 (baixuebing)？
Just wondering.

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Considering Yao Ming’s fame in China as the “Basketball Confucius” (to Larry Bird’s “B.B.J.”), I have wondered just how the biggest celebrity in China might use his fame…well, he’s off to a good start. NYT reports this morning that Yao has teemed up with Li Ning and singer Li Huan to speak out against the [...]

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Andrew Nathan has a review in this month’s issue of Foreign Affairs of Minxin Pei’s new book. ( Pei’s book looks at the weaknesses of present day reform in the PRC–particularly the issue of local corruption–and concludes that China “risks getting trapped in a ‘partial reform’ equilibrium.” A cycle of increasing expectations and diminishing progress [...]

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There is something about a blog that is inherently narcissistic. Here are my thoughts! Look at me! Look at me! The elitist in me dismisses blogs as mass chatterings. Even considering my own chatterings, I wonder if they are worth the tiny bits of bytes required to publish these musings to the world. (Or at [...]

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