Scenes from a Forbidden City…
Scenes from a Forbidden City....clear skies and heightened security. [Read More...]
Culture
Wealth and Power at Capital M
Historian John Delury gave an excellent talk at Capital M today about wealth and power as defining recent Chinese history, but how to fit a search for modernity into that equation? [Read More...]
On cultural hybridity, ambassadors, and other low hanging fruit
Chinese media called Amb. Locke a "banana," but Chinese history is filled with those who transcended "identity" http://wp.me/pgK30-1CF [Read More...]
On Lamas in the White House…
Obama meets with the Dalai Lama tomorrow. Is China missing an opportunity? [Read More...]
Live Tweeting the 2014 Spring Festival Gala: We watch so you don’t have to!
Five hours of equine nuttiness and patriotic fervor condensed into one post. [Read More...]
The Year of the Horse
Tianjin. 6:00 a.m. Explosions. The Chinese New Year is upon us. What to expect in this Year of the Horse? [Read More...]
Bad History: Modern Marvels – The Great Wall
Downloaded the "Great Wall" episode of Modern Marvels for a class. Wasted $1.99 on a History Channel fail. [Read More...]
A Forbidden City
Stopped at the gates of the Forbidden City, I had missed the cut-off time by five minutes. [Read More...]
Granite Studio on the move…
What happens when an apartment deal seems shady? If you've lived in Beijing long enough, your paranoia kicks in and you start to worry. [Read More...]
Is Xi a Reformer? It’s still too early to tell
Is Xi a reformer? As Zhou Enlai once said: "It's too soon to tell." [Read More...]
Passengers booted off of KLM plane
Flight attendants on international carriers are very particular about safety guidelines. Many upwardly mobile Chinese tend to believe that rules are for other people. Hilarity often ensues. [Read More...]
On Sun Yatsen, 1912, and Han Han
Trusting Yuan Shikai to nourish a fragile young republican government was basically akin to dousing a three-year old in A1 Sauce and putting him in the care of a rabid honey badger, but the demise of the first republican experiment might not have been as inevitable as some believe. [Read More...]
Five people you meet on the Beijing metro…
I’ve been riding the subway more. I don’t know why. I’ve never before been particularly masochistic nor do I generally enjoy close physical contact with strangers. But it seems an economical way to get around the city now that every available road surface is jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. Having spent quite a few commuting hours below ground now, I’ve started to distinguish a taxonomy of my fellow passengers, including several species which I find it best to avoid. [Read More...]
My 345th fail while living in China: Buying a basketball
I haven’t done a good “Dear China, WTF?” post in quite some time, so sit back and let me tell you about the "Adventure of Buying a Basketball." [Read More...]
Turning rumors into news: The non-death of Jiang Zemin
In today’s China, it is government censorship which gives credibility to unsubstantiated rumors, and that turns rumors into news. [Read More...]