WorldViews Chinese state media attacks Taiwan’s president for being a single woman By Emily Rauhala May 25 at 3:32 AM Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, after her swearing-in ceremony as the country’s first female president. (Pool photo via AP) Tsai Ing-wen is a lot of things: a graduate of Cornell University and the London School of… Continue reading a rebuttal on the mainland’s attack against Taiwan’s newly elected lady president

Little Diandian (dian meaning ‘dot’ in Chinese) is a lively 4-year-old and obviously well-loved by his family. His world would have been perfect if only his mother lived with him. As soon as I settled on the hard sofa in his grandparents’ courtyard house, the little boy pushed a photo album into my hands. “Look,… Continue reading A Story of a Left-Behind Child

In the end of the 19th Century, having realized how lag behind China had become, the Qing government decided to develop its industries. Cement, naturally, was in great demand. Yet, no one could produce it in the country. All was imported, which explained why cement was then called yang hui – foreign dust. In 1989,… Continue reading Foreign Dust,Industrialization and a market in Tangshan

This morning, I got so excited when I read an email from my literary agent Becky, announcing that I have been offered an advance of USD 8000 for the audio book rights. Describing it as a ‘great’ deal, she said it is much higher than the average audio advance of USD 3000 and urged me… Continue reading audio book offer

China is unique, a fact that the authorities very much like to explore, for example, stressing that the country is so unique that the normal practice of human rights or democracy don’t apply to the Chinese reality. It seems impossible to make comparisons with China because of this. Yet, Jeff Wasserstrom, Chancellor’s Professor of history… Continue reading My Review of Eight Juxtapositions: China Through Imperfect Analogies from Mark Twain to Manchukuo by Jeffrey Wasserstrom

The Cost of the Cultural Revolution, Fifty Years Later BY EVAN OSNOS In 1979, three years after the end of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping visited the United States. At a state banquet, he was seated near the actress Shirley MacLaine, who told Deng how impressed she had been on… Continue reading the cost of the Cultural Revolution