Jottings from the Granite Studio

How did Mao come to power? Out of the rough and tumble scrum of early CCP politics, how did a rich peasant’s son from Hunan emerge as “The Chairman,” the bright red sun of a nation’s heart? It’s a tough question. Traditional PRC historiography usually describes Mao’s final ascension to power as the outcome of [...]

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I wanted to alert readers to an exciting new site launching tomorrow. The China Beat brings together an impressive list of academics and China watchers to provide regular commentary, context, and criticism on media coverage of China.
In the interest of disclosure, I am one of the writers for the site, but that said, I [...]

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As part of a planned blog overhaul, I decided to abandon my previous nom de plume, 花崗齋之愚公, which nobody ever used anyway, and now plan on using my actual name for the site. Who I am was already kind of an open secret among the Beijing blogging and academic community, and certainly anybody with a [...]

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Just some random links from the Chinese blogosphere on this Monday:
I always enjoy blogs that are about something, whether it’s law, or the media, or, for that matter, history. Along those lines, I’ve discovered a new blog called Beijing Sounds - 北京的声儿 that is devoted to the sounds of the Chinese language, particularly the local [...]

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