Media
05.29.13
The Graffiti Seen ‘Round the World
It’s tourist season the world over: let the shenanigans begin. After a young Chinese tourist’s defacement of an ancient Egyptian temple was photographed and shared online, the harsh backlash has gone viral in China’s blogosphere. Tea Leaf Nation...
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05.10.13China Is Plundering The World’s Seas
Quartz
China’s unabated market for pricey fish parts like shark fin and endangered fish bladders is not only hurting the ecosystem, but will also have a negative impact on the world economy.
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01.31.13From Alberta to China, With Nine Kids in Tow
Calgary Herald
Cory and Michelle Coles, both 36, and nine of their 10 children are flying off to China for nine months with the hope of learning Mandarin and understanding more about the fascinating culture behind the emerging superpower.
Postcard
01.08.13
In Longshang
Beijing-based photographer Chien-min Chung recently traveled to the village of Longshang, near Lin’an City in Zhejiang near Hangzhou. He was there to rock climb. Longshang, whose surrounding bamboo forests have long been central to the local economy...
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12.19.12China's Motorways: Get Your Kicks on Route G6
Economist
China is building a motorway across the Tibetan plateau. For some, reaching Lhasa by road is the ultimate dream.
Environment
08.20.12
Tibetans Fight Tourism on Holy Lakes
from chinadialogue
Mining, dam construction, sand excavation, poaching, and grassland degradation are seriously damaging the Qinghai-Tibet plateau, the world’s most fragile ecosystem. But without a second thought, the tourism industry has joined their ranks. The only...
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08.07.12DreamWorks Animation Plans Shanghai Entertainment District
New York Times
DreamWorks Animation SKG, the Hollywood studio behind hits like “Shrek,” “Kung Fu Panda” and “Madagascar 3,” said Tuesday it planned to co-develop a $3.1 billion cultural and entertainment district in Shanghai with a group of Chinese partners.
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07.19.12Long Wait Leads to Standoff With Officials
New York Times
Thousands of people threw water bottles and blocked traffic at a popular nature preserve in northeastern China on Sunday after word spread that the arrival of top Communist Party leaders was causing an hours-long wait to visit a scenic lake. It was...
My First Trip
07.09.12
Busman’s Holiday
The train from the old Kowloon station rumbled as it passed the Chinese border fence on its way to Canton and came to a lurching halt. It was a late summer day in 1981; I was thirty-two years old and now, as I reflected with deep satisfaction, no...
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06.14.12Can China's Rust Belt Reinvent Itself?
Foreign Policy
To understand this industrial Chinese city's past, begin with the smoldering crater on the south side of town, an open-pit coal mine as wide as Manhattan and deeper than the height of the Chrysler Building. Known as Haizhou, or "Sea State...
Caixin Media
05.04.12
The Ruins of Yuanmingyuan
On a balmy, moonlit evening in the autumn of 2010, I took my son out to Yuanmingyuan to wander among the ruins. The 150th anniversary of the destruction of “The Garden of Perfect Brightness”—often called the Old Summer Palace—was approaching and I...
The NYRB China Archive
06.01.11China’s Glorious New Past
from New York Review of Books
I first went to Datong in 1984 and was immediately taken by this gritty city in China’s northern Shanxi Province. Along with half a dozen classmates from Peking University, I traveled eight hours on an overnight train, arriving in a place that felt...