The following is a guest post from my friend Hannah on the latest story buzzing around the Chinese internet. Twenty-four-year-old Liu Lili recently appeared on a Chinese job-hunting TV show. She was halfway through saying, “I was in New Zealand for three years. After those three years, I came back home, and realized, ‘Wow, China’s been throug [...] Keep reading »

In this article, Jonathan Poston finishes the story he started last time about how his kung fu film project collapsed without him ever seeing it coming… …the lead student (and there is almost always one in every group—the outspoken, respected one) came to my office to let me know that the students felt uncomfortable with the contracts they ha [...] Keep reading »

Guest post from Jonathan Poston M.E. Up until now, this story has never been told in print, only lamented in subsequent international business courses I taught, and reminisced about in random “China-talk.” It was a year of peaks and valleys like life tends to serve up, but at the start of 2008, I was surfing at the height of a 100 ft. wave. I [...] Keep reading »

Weibo and Twitter have been abuzz over the Taiwan presidential election despite the party’s ban on the topic. The results will be available soon as the voting is already under way. Many mainland Chinese are highly invested in it because they look to Taiwan for what China can become one day. This week, another renowned Chinese writer chose to leav [...] Keep reading »

Just letting you all know that I am taking off with my wife for a few weeks to enjoy Spring Festival somewhere a little warmer (Malaysia). As I travel I’ll make sure to take copious notes, and will seek out conversations that broaden my vista. But don’t worry, I have done my best to make sure that there will be fresh content waiting for [...] Keep reading »

Yesterday we began to explore the biggest challenge facing China, trust, and how mistrust is a pervasive feeling even at a personal level. Today we are going to slightly broaden our view and look at mistrust between customers and companies. Between customers and companies While the importance of trust may seem obvious, the results of mistrust are o [...] Keep reading »

This year a crowd of economists and social spectators have started to wonder aloud if 2012 will be the year China’s system collapses (to be fair, this is an annual tradition). This time they are pointing to mass incidents, economic troubles, growing evidence of corruption, a Grand Canyon sized gap between rich and poor, and scandals that seem [...] Keep reading »

China’s tomb raiders laying waste to thousands of years of history, by Tania Branigan. Soaring prices offered by collectors and lax monitoring of China’s thousands of historical sites have led to grave robbing on a massive scale. One researcher estimates that 95% of Chinese tombs have been plundered, and that without sufficient protecti [...] Keep reading »

I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday season. In this issue, you will find a sample response to President Hu Jintao’s article about malicious cultural infiltration by hostile forces, items about Wukan, how China practices law, why a couple who were dying to see each other had a hard time reuniting, the deluge of confidential user information, [...] Keep reading »