August 2012

On August 9, Michelle Yun was appointed curator of modern and contemporary art at the Asia Society Museum in New York. Yun, who specializes in Chinese contemporary art and diaspora artists, was most recently curator at the Hunter College Art Galleries in New York. There she headed such exhibitions as “Patti Smith. 9.11: Babelogue” (2011), which featured a series of works on paper by the seminal New York poet-artist, and “Notations: The Cage Effect Today”(2012), a group exhibition exploring the effects of John Cage on various international artists.

China is currently experiencing a variety of impacts from the monsoon, ranging from an extended drought in southern China to a heavy monsoon season this year in northern China.

Popular Chinese websites on Monday ran photos from anti-Japan protests across the nation, showing images of flipped-over and smashed Japanese-model cars in apparent reaction to a China-Japan dispute over a clutch of rocky islands.

But in a country where deep-seated mistrust of Japan is apparent even in China’s most cosmopolitan cities, an unusual number of voices both online and in state-run media argued that protesters from Shenzhen to Shenyang went too far.

The worst U.S. drought in half a century is sending global grain prices soaring. The fallout is almost certain to be felt at dinner tables across China. The No. 1 foreign buyer of American soybeans, which are pressed into cooking oil and used for animal feed, China last year purchased about half of U.S. exports, more than $10.4 billion worth, according to the American Soybean Assn. China has also stepped up purchases of U.S. corn and wheat to feed the nation's growing appetite.