ChinaGeeks

Thanks to twitterer niuB for pointing us in the direction of this excellent piece in Foreign Policy on myths and truths about Tibet, and the strange collective nostalgia many Westerners seem to have for a place they’ve never been and a people they’ve never been among. The entire article is worth a read, but I’ll [...]

As an American who speaks Chinese and a high school Chinese teacher, it was with some interest that I read the NYT’s most recent Room For Debate blog entry. With the caveat that, if my experience when I was asked to write something for RfD was any indication, the editors are looking from specific things [...]

Did you know that when you search Google images for “lion”, the image on the left is the first one that comes up? It is. I didn’t know this either until I stumbled upon it yesterday while watching Penny Arcade’s new episode of PATV. What, I wondered, was the context for this photo, a shot [...]

Hat tip to Richard from Peking Duck for pointing us to this, perhaps the worst article I have ever seen about China in a respected Western news source. It should be noted that even before this, Richard noted that Shaun Rein’s column is often terrible, but this one really takes the cake. His greatest accomplishment: [...]

This blog has, perhaps, earned its name in some small part due to our coverage of racism in China (even though we’re told it doesn’t exist). On that front, I point you in the direction of a few more drops in the bucket.
First, a popular Chinese social network game that allows players to enslave [...]

Who are the titans of Chinese industry? The Times thinks we should know — what with the Chinese economy growing by the minute — and they’ve does us the favor of writing up a list. But how to convey that information to the illiterate and the lazy, who aren’t going to read about powerful Chinese [...]

The San Francisco Chronicle ran a story today (via CDT) about this years Nobel Literature Prize winner Herta Müller. Müller, apparently, is of the opinion that the West should “be tougher on China”. She said (quoting from the news story, which quotes her):
Human rights in China have been cast aside for too long and that [...]

Lets say you’re a journalist. You’ve got a story about how the Chinese government recently executed several Tibetans who were arrested in connection with the riots that happened last year. Your lede reads thusly: “Chinese authorities have carried out their first executions of Tibetans in connection with the deadly riots that swept Lhasa last year, [...]

The China Digital Times pointed us in the direction of this BBC article: “African view: China’s New Long March“. Sigh. Is commercial practice and Chinese diplomacy in Africa really that similar to the actual Long March? No, it isn’t, but we can’t blame the BBC. They’re not exactly alone. Have a look:

Teng’s New Long March
Science [...]

A colleague forwarded us this New York Times story about the recent Frankfurt book fair, at which the tensions between China and the West were very much on display. The Times has tagged it as “uneasy engagement”, and we couldn’t think of a more apropos phrase to describe the conference. Government representatives, dissident writers, the [...]