Once Seed Was Planted, Chinese Headwear Fad Grew Like Weeds
Across China, grown-ups are sporting plastic decorations on their heads in the shape of vegetables, fruit and flowers.
Edmund Backhouse in the Long View of History
from Sinica PodcastEdmund Backhouse, the 20th century Sinologist, long-time Beijing resident, and occasional con-artist, is perhaps best known for his incendiary memoirs, which not only distorted Western understanding of Chinese history for more than 50 years, but...
China’s Butler Boom
On a recent morning at a butler-training school in Chengdu, China,;lessons began at 8 A.M.,with an exercise in “opening the villa.”
Chinese Team Expresses Interest in California High-Speed Rail Program
The Chinese High Speed Rail Delivery Team is among 35 U.S. and foreign entities that expressed their interest in participating in the California High-Speed Rail(CHSR) program.
Hip Hop in China
from Sinica PodcastKaiser Kuo and David Moser are joined today by Jerry Chan and Matt Sheehan for a look at hip-hop in China. Both guests should be familiar to long-time listeners in Beijing. Jerry has been involved with the local music scene for over a decade and...
In China’s Heartland, Small Cities Flourish
Even in slowdown, a Yangtze River town bursts with consumer vitality.
Beijing Tells Mayors of Chinese Cities to Clean Up Their Air
from chinadialogueIn China, “APEC blue” was the sarcastic term used to refer to the unusually clear skies Beijing enjoyed when an Asia-Pacific leaders summit was in...
Official Stonewalling on Tianjin Explosions Sparks Outcry
While victims of the Tianjin explosions are still waiting to be told why their loved ones died or, how safe it is to go outside, officials remained evasive in the sixth press conference regarding the disaster.
In response to a question...
In China, Single Women Live by Their Own Rules
Though many single women have recently begun to push back on the term, traditional attitudes among China’s older generation still prevail: Get married young or risk becoming unwanted goods. Klaudia Lech, a photographer based in Oslo, was...
Military Sends Chemical Specialists to Blast Site, Death Toll Rises to 50
So far more than 1,000 firefighters, 151 fire engines and a drone have been dispatched to the blast site.
Tianjin Blast Rescuers Removing Toxic Chemical Substance from Scene
Sodium cyanide has now been detected in the sewage and leakage has been confirmed.
At Sea in the City
What Did China Bring to the Iran Talks?
While China stood with the Western powers in insisting Iran give up its ambitions for nuclear weapons, Beijing took Iran’s side in calling for more rapid sanctions relief.
China Cracks Down on Hong Kong Evangelists
A 2014 survey of more than 1,000 Protestant churches in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong Church Renewal Movement gives some insight into their activities.
China May Adopt 'Two-child Policy, Demographic Timebomb Looms
China could be on the verge of introducing a two-child policy, under which all Chinese couples would be allowed to have two children.
This Instagram Account Offers a New Perspective on China
Some photographs show the surprisingly mundane moments in the life of regular Chinese, such as Albertazzi’s image of a group of men playing cards in their swim shorts on a hot summer afternoon in Beijing; others are images from long-term...
As Beijing Becomes a Supercity, the Rapid Growth Brings Pains
The planned megalopolis, a metropolitan area that would be about six times the size of New York's, is meant to revamp northern China's economy.
At Least Eleven People Killed in a Bus Crash in China
Eleven people died in a bus crash after the vehicle fell off a highway bridge in north-eastern China.
Thousands Protest on Anniversary of Hong Kong’s Return to China
As Hong Kong marks the 18th anniversary of its handover from Britain from China, thousands take to the street to rally for democracy.
China's Military Must Help Xinjiang Modernize
China’ wants to bring “modern civilisation” to the southern areas of Xinjiang, where Muslim ethnic Uighurs are in a majority, and help develop its economy
China Concerned Over Turkish Religious Complaints
China expressed displeasure with Turkey’s complaints about restrictions on worship and fasting by Uighur Muslims during Ramadan.
Russia Delivers Submarine To Vietnam For Defense Over South China Sea Dispute
The submarines are Vietnam's effort to deter China's military from building up in the South China Sea.
Techies Are Trying to Get Chinese Consumers to Rack Up Debt
In recent years, as the growth of the Chinese economy has slowed—thanks to declining demand for exports and new real estate projects—the government has been desperate to get its thrifty citizens to spend, spend, spend and drive economic growth...
City of Virtues
Throughout Nanjing’s history, writers have claimed that its spectacular landscape of mountains and rivers imbued the city with “royal qi,” making it a place of great political significance. City of Virtues examines the ways a series of visionaries, drawing on past glories of the city, projected their ideologies onto Nanjing as they constructed buildings, performed rituals, and reworked the literary heritage of the city.
China Aims to Move Beijing Government Out of City’s Crowded Core
Officials finalize plans to move Beijing’s municipal government, including tens of thousands of civil servants to Tongzhou.
The Brother Orange Saga
from Sinica PodcastThe story started when a Buzzfeed editor lost his iPhone in an East Village bar in February of last year and blossomed into the Sino-American romance of the century, and probably the most up-lifting and altogether unlikely China story that we can...
China’s Millennials
In 1989, students marched on Tiananmen Square demanding democratic reform. The Communist Party responded with a massacre, but it was jolted into restructuring the economy and overhauling the education of its young citizens. A generation later, Chinese youth are a world apart from those who converged at Tiananmen. Brought up with lofty expectations, they’ve been accustomed to unprecedented opportunities on the back of China’s economic boom. But today, China’s growth is slowing and its demographics rapidly shifting, with the boom years giving way to a painful hangover.
Uber Spends Heavily to Establish Itself in China
Fat with almost $6 billion in venture capital, San Francisco-based Uber is doling out bonuses up to three times its fares.
No Ordinary Disruption
Our intuition on how the world works could well be wrong. We are surprised when new competitors burst on the scene, or businesses protected by large and deep moats find their defenses easily breached, or vast new markets are conjured from nothing. Trend lines resemble saw-tooth mountain ridges.
Want a Green Card? Invest in Real Estate
Developers also take the search for investors in their projects on the road, primarily to China.
Searching for Identity in China’s Outer Lands
“ ‘China’s Outer Lands’ is about people instinctively looking for their own identity, between conformity or originality or autonomy or dependence,” Mr. Sakamaki said. “It’s natural, it’s happening in not only China, it’s everywhere.”
Fatal Police Shooting Under Investigation: Ministry
There are clear rules on the carrying and use of fire arms by police officers, and it will take time to confirm whether police had opened fire legally in the case.
Fantasy Islands
The rise of China and its status as a leading global factory are altering the way people live and consume. At the same time, the world appears wary of the real costs involved. Fantasy Islands probes Chinese, European, and American eco-desire and eco-technological dreams, and examines the solutions they offer to environmental degradation in this age of global economic change.
Wild Pigeon
“The underlying theme I heard when talking to people was that how you interpret things is how they will be, so its best to look at the bright side of things. You don’t mention bad dreams, or you try to interpret them in a positive way. People...
Styling It in China
from Sinica PodcastSociologist Ben Ross, a doctoral student at the University of Chicago, focuses on Chinese labor migration and related issues. He first got noticed by Sinica in 2007 while writing...
This Little Bridge Connects Guangzhou and Africa
The southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is home to China’s largest African migrant population, predominantly from...
China’s Real Inconvenient Truth: Its Class Divide
China is talking about its pollution problem, but its equally serious class problem remains obscured behind the...
Under the Dome
from Sinica PodcastUnder the Dome, Chai Jing's breakout documentary on China's catastrophic air pollution problem, finally hit insurmountable political opposition last Friday after seven days in which the video racked up over 200 million views. The eventual...
Migrant Hair
This photo series of Chinese hairdressers was made in the spring of 2012, in the city center of Chengdu in Sichuan province. There, some 16 percent of the city’s...
Keep in Touch, Nightman
from Sinica PodcastIn 1997, Beijing was smaller city, and Keep in Touch, Jamhouse, and Nightman were the hippest venues around. There was no traffic on the ring roads, and if you got tired of Chinese food you might take a trip to Fangzhuang to visit this Italian...
The People’s Republic of Chemicals
Maverick environmental writers William J. Kelly and Chip Jacobs follow up their acclaimed Smogtown with a provocative examination of China’s ecological calamity already imperiling a warming planet. Toxic smog most people figured was obsolete needlessly kills as many as died in the 9/11 attacks every day, while sometimes Grand Canyon-sized drifts of industrial particles aloft on the winds rain down ozone and waterway-poisoning mercury in America.
Shanghai and the Future Now
from Sinica PodcastExpats in Beijing may be partial to our rugged smogtropolis, but even the most diehard northerner will admit that Shanghai is the more romantic of the two cities, with its very name conjuring up images of 19th century opium dens, jazz bars in the...
Inside the Property Revolution
from Sinica PodcastLuigi Tomba, expert on municipal government in China, fellow at the Australian Centre on China and the World, and author of the book ...
China’s Air Pollution: The Tipping Point
Last November, Beijing saw a stretch of solidly clear skies and the Chinese media coined a phrase to describe them: APEC blue. After the diplomats and businesspeople gathered in China’s capital for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum...
‘New Measures Needed’ To Take China’s Cars Off the Roads
from chinadialogueAs air pollution once more soared to hazardous levels last week in Beijing, in Washington a panel of Chinese and other international experts explained some of the...
China Labor Activists Say Facing Unprecedented Intimidation
The number of strikes more than doubled in 2014 to 1,378 from 656 the year before, according to China Labor Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based advocacy group. April saw the biggest strike in decades, when about 40,000 employees of Adidas and Nike...
Religion Among African Immigrants in China
Nestled in apartments and offices throughout the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou are dozens of improvised churches that cater to the region’s Pentacostal Africans, largely from Nigeria. These churches not only serve the community’s religious...