East Asian Languages and Societies Commons^™

An Interview With Chinese Underground Rock Musician Zuoxiao Zuzhou, Tim Hathaway

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A quick listen to Zuoxiao Zuzhou’s (左小祖咒）music would not be enough to explain his fame. His trademark is singing off key.

In spite of the odd sounding vocals or perhaps because of its contrast to the saccharine sweet sounds of Chinese pop and rock, Zuoxiao has become one of China’s most successful rock musicians.

He started his career in 1993 and has since produced ten albums. He has also published a best selling novel and created sculptures and artistic photography. He was a founding member of the avant garde artists residence called Beijing’s “East Village” in the early 1990s where …

The Freshest Kids In China, George Zhi Zhao

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

R16 at the Shanghai World Expo

June 19, 2010 I hear the voice of the late James Brown shouting over the booming speakers, and I watch a crowd of dancers move and contort to every minute rhythm and sound that is being controlled and manipulated by the DJ. The energy in the air is tense, as different b-boys (breakdancers) take turns stepping inside a circle of bodies, all asserting themselves in back-to-back solo performances of gravity-defying sequences of dance movements. The competitive performance of breakdancing happens all over the world, in metropolises ranging from New York City to Tokyo, from …

Where’S Haibao? Help Us Find Him!

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Shanghai seems to have turned into a massive game of “Where’s Haibao?” as the image of everyone’s favorite Expo mascot pervades the city, in places both expected and not. Gina Bock, an entering student at Pomona College, recently returned from her first trip to China and shared a few photos of her Haibao sightings with us. They’re now in a Picasa album (link below, and also accessible through our “Media” page). If you have Haibao photos of your own to add (the more unusual, the better!), let us know by writing to thechinabeat[at]gmail.com. Though we suspect Haibao will be only …

Anthologize: A New Tool For Bloggers

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

We wanted to alert readers who are fellow WordPress users to the arrival of a cool new WordPress plugin that has just been unveiled. Anthologize is the product of the “One Week | One Tool” program, a summer institute funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and held at the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. The plugin — conceived, developed, and released in just one week! — enables bloggers to grab online content, edit and organize it, and produce an electronic book. Read more about Anthologize, and some ideas about how it can enhance …

A Q-And-A With Scott Tong Of Marketplace

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As regular readers of this blog know, I spent late June and much of July in Shanghai, with brief trips to other parts of China. One aspect of this sojourn in the PRC that proved memorable was the opportunity it afforded me to finally meet several people whose reporting or commentaries I’ve admired, but whose paths had never crossed mine before, including Kaiser Kuo (whose Sinica podcasts we’ve talked up here before), David Barboza of the New York Times (whose day-in-the-life of a South China worker I singled out for praise in a recent commentary), freelancer Adam Minter (who has …

Reading Round-Up, 8/2/2010

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Before we fully embrace the arrival of August, a bit of housekeeping from July . . . some stories that we noticed during the past month and wanted to share with our readers:

• Xujun Eberlein has been busy lately, and two of her recent pieces of writing have overlaps with topics we’ve discussed here at China Beat in the past few weeks. On the matter of Wang Hui and plagiarism, see her post at Inside-Out China; for her review of the “social science fiction” novel Shengshi: Zhongguo 2013, head over to Foreign Policy.

• If you’re in Beijing and …

Spinning And Scratching

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“Qingmu, a Japanese DJ who moved to Beijing shortly before the Olympics, spins an evening away in his Nanluoguxiang home – which also doubles as the headquarters for a Tibet tour company. The Chinese hip-hop scene, Qingmu says, is ‘just beginning’.”

— Alec Ash, Six

Sneak Peek: The Urbanatomy Shanghai World Expo Guide 2010

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

When the Shanghai World Expo officially opens on Saturday, visitors will have to negotiate the largest fairground ever constructed, spanning 1305 acres on both sides of the Huangpu River. Such an expedition requires not just a map, but a guide – and the Urbanatomy team has stepped in to provide one. Hitting shelves at Carrefour and City Shop stores in Shanghai this week, the Urbanatomy Shanghai World Expo Guide 2010 includes maps of the Expo site, in addition to discussions of World’s Fair history and background on Shanghai. Below, two excerpts from the guide’s introduction, written by Nick Land.

Expo …

Reflections On The Qinghai Earthquake, Nicole Barnes

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

As the Qinghai earthquake turns into yesterday’s news overseas and begins to sink into the sea of usual economic stories here in China, I would like to reflect upon the position of 10-year-old volunteer Tsering Dan Zhou in earthquake media.

News coverage of the earthquake here in China is impressive in many ways. The programs convey the information that everyone desires, but are also clearly designed to incite sympathy and get people to dig into their wallets for donations to the Chinese Red Cross and other relief agencies. They also pointedly emphasize “social harmony” (shehui hexie 社会和谐, Hu Jintao’s favorite …

New On The Web: The China Tracker

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

If you’d like to read more about “What a superpower wants,” check out a new blog from Forbes, “The China Tracker.” Only a week old, the site features pieces from regular contributors such as Gady Epstein (Beijing bureau chief for Forbes), Bill Bishop (a Beijing-based investor/adviser to start-ups, blogger at DigiCha.com, and prolific Twitter user under the name @niubi), and China Beat consulting editor Jeff Wasserstrom (whose first post is “Terminology For A Fast-Changing China”). Recent articles have discussed “China’s Barbie Doll Economics,” whatHertz and Avis have to do with the U.S.-China relationship, and the politics of China’s new real …

Making A Difference, Paul R. Katz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Each of us can make a difference. It may not be easy, but it can be done; all you need is love, patience, and dedication.

One person who has made a difference is Hsiao Hsien-Ming 蕭賢明, who works for the Council for Cultural Affairs of the Executive Yuan (行政院文化建設委員會). Like so many of us, he watched in horror as the news came in about the village of Siaolin 小林 being wiped off the face of the earth. Moreover, as a father of three small children (Chemg is 12, Zoe is 9, and Zhi is 6), he felt the deepest sorrow …

Writing About A Fast-Changing China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On Friday, April 23, China Beat and the UCI Humanities Collective hosted a dialogue between journalist Mara Hvistendahl and UCI Professor Jeffrey Wasserstrom on “Writing About a Fast-Changing China: Notes from the Borderland Between Scholarship and Journalism.” The lively discussion covered Hvistendahl’s experiences in China, the differences in writing for a popular audience as an academic versus as a journalist, and Hvistendahl’s current book project (due out in 2011) on prenatal sex selection and gender imbalance.

While on campus, Hvistendahl was able to meet with several local scholars of China’s birth policies, Susan Greenhalgh and Wang Feng. Wang Feng was …

Writing About A Fast-Changing China

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On Friday, April 23, China Beat and the UCI Humanities Collective hosted a dialogue between journalist Mara Hvistendahl and UCI Professor Jeffrey Wasserstrom on “Writing About a Fast-Changing China: Notes from the Borderland Between Scholarship and Journalism.” The lively discussion covered Hvistendahl’s experiences in China, the differences in writing for a popular audience as an academic versus as a journalist, and Hvistendahl’s current book project (due out in 2011) on prenatal sex selection and gender imbalance.

While on campus, Hvistendahl was able to meet with several local scholars of China’s birth policies, Susan Greenhalgh and Wang Feng. Wang Feng was …

China Lectures, Both Online And In Person

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

• Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, presented the 70th George E. Morrison Lecture in Ethnology at the Australian National University last week, speaking on the topic of “Australia and China in the World.” Audio of Rudd’s lecture is available online here; those who would prefer to read a transcript of the talk can find onehere.

For Geremie Barmé’s thoughts on an earlier China-focused speech by Rudd, given in April 2008 at Peking University, turn to pages 212-214 of China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance and read “Facing Up to Friendship,” or see a shorter version of Barmé’s …

Shanghai’S Expo: What Everyone Needs To Know

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In exactly one week, the countdown clocks in Shanghai will all finally hit zero. This is because this year May Day will also be Opening Day for the 2010 World Expo, an event that has been largely ignored in the United States (at least until very recently), but has been the subject of an enormous amount of advance publicity (and hype) within China, in part because it will be that country’s first World Fair and the first large-scale spectacle held there since the giant National Day parades of last year and the Beijing Games of 2008. It is an event …

Back To The Future: Going To The World’S Fair!, Shellen Xiao Wu

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Once upon a time, world’s fairs displayed the glory, wealth, and reach of European empires and those who wished to emulate them. Countries from Asia, Africa, and South America set up booths presenting ”native” products, alongside the latest steam engines, repeating rifles and other technological wonders of the “advanced” nations. The first World’s Fair in London in 1851 brought the translucent Crystal Palace; the Eiffel Tower served as the entrance arch to the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1889; in 1893 the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago symbolized America’s entry into the ranks of powers.

In ten days, the Shanghai Expo …

Event Reminder: China Dialogue At Uc Irvine, 4/23

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A reminder for our readers in Southern California that China Beat is co-sponsoring an event at UC Irvine on Friday afternoon. Jeff Wasserstrom will be in dialogue with journalist Mara Hvistendahl, discussing “The Challenge of Writing about a Fast-Changing China: Notes from the Borderland Between Scholarship and Journalism.” The talk will also serve as a book launch for China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, Wasserstrom’s new release from Oxford University Press.

The event will be held in Humanities Gateway, room 1030, from 1:00-2:30 p.m.

Reading Round-Up: China In The World

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

A grab bag of readings around the web that we wanted to share — loosely connected by a “China in the world” theme that the site editors have been thinking about a lot lately, as we’ve begun discussing the possibility of a secondChina Beat book to follow up China in 2008: A Year of Great Significance. Though it’s presently more an idea than a plan, now it seems that everywhere we look, we see China Beatniks being talked about in different parts of the world, connecting China with different parts of the world, and simply moving from writing about China …

Qinghai Earthquake Stories In Translation

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

•At his blog, Bruce Humes compares a Newsweek story on the earthquake’s aftermath, “A Sympathetic Hearing,” with its Chinese translation appearing inCankao Xiaoxi (参考消息), finding that quite a bit got edited out and altered. Highlights of the Cankao Xiaoxi version, summarized by Humes:

•Quotes from China social commentator Yang Hengjun are cut to ribbons and then spliced, partly to remove references to anti-Tibetan prejudice among Han, arguably fostered by China’s own media coverage (“It’s very hard to see real Tibetans…on TV, they’re dancing all the time, shaking hands with leaders, celebrating, or shown as troublemakers.”)

•Chinese people don’t “Tweet” (even …

Robert Barnett On The Qinghai Earthquake

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In the aftermath of last week’s earthquake in Qinghai, Brice Pedroletti of Le Mondeinterviewed (via e-mail) Robert Barnett, director of the Modern Tibetan Studies Program at Columbia University. (Read the interview, and a related story, at Le Monde’s website.) Below, an unedited English version of their interview, which is posted here with permission of both Brice Pedroletti and Robert Barnett.

Interview with Robert Barnett on Yushu’s earthquake political implications (April 16th)

Brice Pedroletti: What can we expect the political mood to be in the Tibetan population as well as among the monks, towards the Chinese authorities, over one year after …

Updates On The Qinghai Earthquake

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

1. Evan Osnos has a “Letter from China” at his New Yorker blog that addresses the earthquake as “a test of openness,” as rumors spread throughout the country worry that the government is hiding predictions of another quake that will supposedly hit Beijing and Tianjin in the coming weeks. Osnos also links to this page at the Huffington Post, which lists organizations accepting donations to aid in earthquake relief.

2. China Digital Times has centralized its news about the earthquake at this page.

3. Danwei’s “Front Page of the Day” looks at how various Chinese newspapers covered the earthquake.

4. …

Dancing Is My Hobby

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

“In Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia, a 76-year-old former PLA soldier and amateur calligrapher from Shanghai dances away another Tuesday morning. Underneath his footwork, he has written in almost as flawless spelling, ‘Dancing is my hoby’.”

— Alec Ash, Six

Asia, Faraway Or Next Door?, Samuel Y. Liang

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On my way from England to AAS 2010, I stopped in New York for two nights and visited the Chinatown in Manhattan. This prosperous area sprawls beyond the boundary shown in the tourist map towards the shoreline of the East River; it also encroaches on neighboring Little Italy, which is increasingly like an island in a sea of Chinese shops and restaurants. The density of the shops and their gaudy commercialism, it seems to me, exceed those in Chinese cities and are quite similar to those in Won Kok, Hong Kong.

In a buffet-style restaurant, I got to know two …

Qinghai Earthquake Readings

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Quite a bit is being written today about Wednesday’s earthquake in Qinghai, and we expect many more stories in the coming days. Here, a survey of what we’ve found online so far:

1. The Guardian has put together an interactive map of the quake region, as well as a powerful photo series.

2. Danwei has translated a commentary by Wang Jian of China National Radio, which focuses on the difficulties of relief and rescue efforts:

At this time, we do not have enough tents to shield the victims from the cold, and we do not have enough blankets to warm …

Expo Readings Around The Web

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

With the Shanghai World Expo opening in just a few short weeks, it’s now showing up in news stories on a daily basis. A few links to check out:

1. The team at Shanghaiist got to take a tour of the still-under-construction Expo grounds last week, and have posted quite a number of pictures from their visit; check out their galleries of Zone A, Zone B, and Zone C. Over at Shanghai Scrap, Adam Minter documents his look inside the U.S. Expo pavilion (and his underwhelmed reaction) in a story here.

2. Also at Shanghaiist, Elaine Chow has conducted a …

Before China Beat, There Was China Beyond The Headlines, Timothy B. Weston

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

For several years now there has been a close connection between China Beat and China beyond the Headlines. The latter, a series of essay collections edited by myself and Lionel M. Jensen, is designed for a general and classroom audience (Volume One was published in 2000; Volume Two, China’s Transformations, was released in 2007). In addition to some common players who have been involved with both, such as Geremie Barmé, Tim Cheek, Tim Oakes, Jeff Wasserstrom and myself, China Beat and China beyond the Headlines are fortunate to share Susan McEachern of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers as an editor. Each …

Book Talk(S)

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Finishing up work on China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know, which is due out in a few days from Oxford University Press, and then more recently preparing for a series of public events that are linked in some way to its publication, set me thinking about the varied ways that books incorporate things that have gone before them. The many kinds of building blocks, from tales told to things written down, that authors use to create something new.

I’ve never written a novel, but I’ve heard that these can easily grow out of a tale told …

Socialist Cosmopolitanism: China Beat Event

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

On Wednesday, April 7, the China Beat was pleased to co-host (with the Humanities Collective) a talk at UCI by Nicolai Volland, who teaches Chinese Studies at National University of Singapore. Volland spoke on “Socialist Cosmopolitanism: China’s Other ‘Age of Openness’ in the 1950s.” ReferencingFrank Dikötter‘s recent book on Republican China, The Age of Openness: China Before Mao, Volland argued that 1950s China can also be seen as “open,” if not to the U.S. and Western Europe. Volland explored cultural exchanges within the socialist world to provide evidence of China’s continued international engagement during the early Mao years. Interested readers …

Though I Am Gone

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

In his review of Andrew Walder’s Fractured Rebellion: The Beijing Red Guard Movement, John Gittings discusses the July 1966 murder of Bian Zhongyun, deputy principal of the Beijing Normal Girls’ High School. Gittings mentions that Bian’s story has been told in a moving documentary that features interviews with her husband, who shares photographs that he took at the time of her death. The entire movie, Wo sui siqu (我虽死去 Though I Am Gone), is available on YouTube; below, we’ve embedded the first section of the film (in Mandarin with English subtitles).

Listen At Home To Peter Hessler And Ken Pomeranz

China Beat Blog: Archive 2008-2012

Earlier this year, UC Irvine hosted a conversation between Peter Hessler and Ken Pomeranz, centering on a discussion of Hessler’s new book, Country Driving. A podcast of that event is now available, jointly produced by The China Beat andMaking History Podcast (a site run by Jana Remy, a UCI History graduate student and friend of the blog). Check it out at the MHP website, or on iTunes.