By Yaxue Cao, published: June 25, 2012 《盛树人》_中文版   I came upon the name Sheng Shuren (盛树人) recently when I was reading one of the documents left behind by Uncle Liu Erning. From the reference I learned Sheng Shuren was a man arrested along with Uncle Erning in Xushui, Hebei Province, in the summer of 1958. I very much wan [...] Keep reading »

By Xu Zhiyong Dr. Xu Zhiyong is a lecturer of law at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and one of the founders of Open Constitution Initiative (公盟) that offers legal assistance to petitioners and rights defenders, and has been repeatedly harassed, shut down and persecuted. In 2010 it changed its name to simply “Citizen”. J [...] Keep reading »

Duanwu Jie (端午节), or Dragon Boat Festival, is said to have originated in commemoration of the noble suicide of poet/official Qu Yuan roughly 2,300 years ago. The villagers who witnessed his death so respected the man that they raced in their boats to retrieve his body. Others threw balls of glutinous rice (Zongzi) into the river to distract t [...] Keep reading »

Today, Jonathan Watts of the Guardian filed his last article from Beijing entitled, “China: Witnessing the birth of a superpower.” While I will sorely miss his reporting, his lengthy 4,000 word post neatly encapsulates the decade long rule of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao who came to power just months before Jonathan’s arrival. It is a [...] Keep reading »

Last week, a photo emerged on weibo of a woman laying next to her aborted daughter*, and the Chinese Internet exploded in anger over how the One Child Policy was being implemented (The New Yorker has a good overview). I didn’t comment on this last week, not because of self-censorship or a disinterest in the story, but because I had failed to [...] Keep reading »

Since November last year, Murong Xuecun has becoming increasingly vocal about China’s political situation. If you haven’t read his works, now is a good time to catch up. His only book available in English, “Leave Me Alone: A Novel of Chengdu” (excerpt) focuses on individual struggles in modern China, and while it is a gritt [...] Keep reading »

My wife asked her students to collect stories from their grandparents from the Rape of Nanking. Many of the student’s families had fled the city, and other simply didn’t hand anything in. The following are four accounts of what happened in Jiangsu province during the war with Japan as remembered by witnesses of the tragedies. I’m [...] Keep reading »

This morning I took a deep breath as I left my apartment (due in part to the insane pollution we’ve had in Nanjing the last few days, which Global Times reported was the equivalent of smoking 15 packs of cigarettes), and prepared myself for a trip to one of the worst places in China- the post office. Now bear in mind that I myself am the gra [...] Keep reading »

Last week I carefully broached the subject of Tian’anmen Square with one of my co-workers. Together we looked through a series of pictures from that day from The Atlantic (excellent), which sparked a very interesting, and yet minimally productive conversation. It was her first time seeing evidence of civilian casualties, and I explained tha [...] Keep reading »