Some 814 million watched the Lunar New Year TV extravaganza from China Central Television—way more than the 112 million viewers for the 2014 Super Bowl on Fox in the U.S.
China will spend $148 billion on its military this year, up from $139.2 billion in 2013, according to IHS Jane’s, a defense industry consulting and analysis company.
Under the harsh glare of a studio spotlight, bride-to-be Tong turns her face until it is almost completely in shadow. Tong is posing for a three-day session of wedding photographs at Shanghai’s premier Princess Studio, where couples spend between 3,000 RMB (U.S.$500) and 130,000 RMB (U.S.$21,000) to create extravagant mementos in fantasy settings of what may be the most important milestone in their lives. Yet in this rendering by French photographer Guillaume Herbaut, the carefully staged vision of marital bliss has gone awry.
The wedding banquet comes later. For many Chinese couples, married life really begins in the photo studio where, basted in glitter and hair gel, the brides dressed for a debut at La Scala or night out with Fabio, they gaze upon sets so tufted and inlaid and gold-foiled that comparisons to the real places that seem to have served as models—Versailles, the homes of Donald Trump—don’t quite suffice. This isn’t just a ritual for the rich and corrupt.
Richard Madsen is one of the modern-day founders of the study of Chinese religion. A professor at the University of California San Diego, the seventy-three-year-old’s works include Morality and Power in a Chinese Village, China and the American Dream, and China’s Catholics: Tragedy and Hope in an Emerging Civil Society. He’s now working on a book about happiness in China. I recently spoke to Madsen in Chicago, where he was addressing a meeting of Catholic leaders who deal with the Church in China.
Ian Johnson: Are people in China happy?
Dispute between two powers results in unexpected benefits for tiny Taiwan's fishing industry.
China’s Communist state is hardly known for its transparency. So when environmental groups appealed for official air pollution data, they were not expecting much.
The ChinaFile Conversation is a regular, real-time discussion of China news, from a group of the world’s leading China experts.
Emily Parker talks with Yiyun Li about self-censorship in China, the line between fact and fiction, and whether it’s possible to create good art under a repressive regime.
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