Jess Meider

Jess Meider has resided in Beijing since 1997 when she moved there from New York City. A songwriting graduate of Berklee College of Music, she has been gracing stages all over China with her amazing voice in various musical projects. Her jazz quartet and singer-songwriter act perform frequently in Beijing. Most recently, she has been performing with her electronic duo, Jess Meider featuring Chinatown. Meider is known as one of China’s best jazz vocalists and has spent almost half of her life practicing her performance in music festivals and Beijing's and Shanghai’s most popular live music venues.

Two of her original jazz tunes were included in the Chinese romantic comedy What Women Want (2011) and her voice was featured in the final scene of Cui Jian’s movie, Blue Sky Bones (2013). A documentary of her life in China aired on national TV (CCTV4) in September 2014, and since then she has been featured on several different Chinese TV shows. Last year, she shared the stage with highly popular vocalist Gong Linna, and her voice has aired nationwide in China for commercials for Audi, MG, and many other high-end brands. She is also a well-known yoga teacher at The Yoga Yard and teaches privately her own brand of vocal "gongfu."

Sierra Club

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From their website:

Founded by legendary conservationist John Muir in 1892, the Sierra Club is now the nation's largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization -- with more than two million members and supporters. Our successes range from protecting millions of acres of wilderness to helping pass the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act. More recently, we've made history by leading the charge to move away from the dirty fossil fuels that cause climate disruption and toward a clean energy economy.

Clearing Skies

A Journalist Who Fled China’s Air Pollution Looks Back and Sees Rays of Hope

After dark is when the pollution arrives on the outskirts of Shanghai. On a bright night, when moonlight refracts through the smog, you can see black clouds of soot pouring out of small workshop smokestacks silhouetted against the sky. In case you miss it in the dark, there's always the morning's first deep breath and the feeling of something raw in your throat.

The Other China

ChinaFile Presents

Writers Michael Meyer and Ian Buruma engage in a discussion co-sponsored by The New York Review of Books centered on Meyer’s new book, In Manchuria: A Village Called Wasteland and the Transformation of Rural China, which combines immersion journalism, memoir, and historical research to create a portrait of the momentous changes underway in China’s often-overlooked countryside.