NPR

on June 24, 2012

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NPR is a mission-driven, multimedia news organization and radio program producer. It is a network with a strong base of member stations and supporters nationwide. The NPR employees are innovators and developers — exploring new ways to serve the public via digital platforms and improved technologies. NPR is also the leading membership and representation organization for public radio.

The Charms of Qing TV

By Jeremiah Jenne on June 22, 2012

It's a good time to be a Manchu on television. Costume dramas such as “Palace” and “Bu Bu Jing Xin”, which feature modern-day protagonists flung back in time to the days of the Qing emperors, rank among the most-watched programmes on China’s video-sharing sites. And while these series would seem to mine every possible fish-out-of-water plot element for effect, nobody seems to question that a young woman speaking modern Mandarin would have any trouble communicating with her new Manchu boyfriend.

Arts, Society
Television, Qing Dynasty

The One-Child Policy

By Kaiser Kuo, Alexa Olesen & more on June 22, 2012

While the African community in Guangzhou has taken to the streets to protest the suspicious death of a foreign national in police custody, the Chinese Internet has proven equally volatile as gruesome photos of a late-stage abortion have circulated online to the shock and horror of many netizens. This week, Sinica turns its attention to both events, but mostly the One-Child Policy, as we discuss first the history of China’s family-planning restrictions and then look at the political forces within China arrayed for and against the status quo.

The Blind, Leading

By Bi Feiyu on June 21, 2012

Summer 2003. I suffer a serious shoulder injury. A friend suggests I go to a massage clinic that employs blind masseurs. The clinic is not far from my home, perhaps less than a hundred meters away, but I had never noticed it.

Arts

Xu Zhiyong (许志永): An Account of My Recent Disappearance

By Xu Zhiyong on June 21, 2012

Dr. Xu Zhiyong is a lecturer of law at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and one of the founders of Open Constitution Initiative (公盟) that offers legal assistance to petitioners and rights defenders, and has been repeatedly harassed, shut down and persecuted. In 2010 it changed its name to simply “Citizen”. Just weeks ago in May 29, Dr. Xu posted a blog post titled China’s New Civil Movement to renew his call for a “new civic movement are a free China with democracy and the rule of law, a civil society of justice and happiness, and a new national spirit of freedom, fairness and love.” The post has since been deleted by the authorities, and he himself was taken away by security police to answer questions. With Dr. Xu’s permission, Yaxue translated his account of the recent disappearance.

Law, Politics
Human Rights, Detention, Xu Zhiyong

Q&A: Shi Zhiying's "Infinite Lawn"

By Christopher Moore on June 21, 2012

Shi Zhiying (b.1979; lives and works in Shanghai) is a painter known for her stark black-and-white paintings of rather uniform vistas — the wide, open sea, Zen sand gardens, blades of grass that occupy the viewer's horizons. In her latest series, she takes inspiration from Italo Calvino's Mr. Palomar; these watercolors, along with large, meditative oil paintings, are being shown in her first solo show at James Cohan Shanghai.

Arts
Painting

King of Canton: Yang Jiechang

By Miryam Rodriguez on June 21, 2012

Although southern China’s Guangdong province has been the birth place of emperors and Chan Buddhist patriarchs, it has never had its own king. Now is the time for Hong Kong’s Hanart TZ Gallery to fill in this gap, claims Guangdong-born artist, Yang Jiechang, in the exhibition catalog to his current solo show. The gallery is doing precisely that, dutifully carrying out Yang’s decree in their one-room gallery space on Pedder Street with the exhibition “King of Canton,” composed of six works, including new pieces created this year. In a variety of media and techniques, including traditional ink painting, black sandalwood, a video installation and neon light, Yang aesthetically reflects on his home province’s history and physical attributes, claiming it is so “blessed” it can stand alone, as its own country.

Arts

Why the Dalai Lama is Hopeful

By Jonathan Mirsky on June 21, 2012

“I told President Obama the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party are missing a part of the brain, the part that contains common sense,” the Dalai Lama said to me during our conversation in London Wednesday.

But it can be put back in. I am hopeful about the new Chinese leadership beginning late this year. The Communist leaders now lack self-confidence, but I have heard from my Chinese friends that after a year or two the new ones will take some initiatives, so more freedom, more democracy.