Published: July 10, 2014 Li Huaping (李化平), known online as “Norwegian Wood” (挪威森林), is a dissident and activist based in Shanghai. A key figure in the New Citizens Movement, he was arrested in August, 2013, charged with “gathering a crowd to disrupt order in a public place.” Trial of Li Huaping is expected soon. — The editor Hefei Municipality Shushan District People’s Procuratorate Indictment Shu Procuratorate criminal indict. (2014) No. 152   Defendant Li Huaping, male, born September 6, 1966, ID number: 51010219660906****, ethnic Han, originally from Lianyuan municipality, Hunan Province, undergraduate university education level, freelancer, home address [redacted by translators] Wuchuan Road, Yangpu District, Shanghai, place of household registration: [redacted by translators], Hetang District, Zhuzhou Municipality, Hunan Province. Defendant Li Huaping was criminally detained on August […]

In my recent blog “Lock Up and Lock Down” about crackdowns on dissidents and activists during the Two Meetings, I mentioned an incident about a ten-year-old girl whose father is a dissident in Hefei, Anhui (安徽合肥): “In a particularly egregious episode of this year’s clamping down on dissidents, on February 27 in Hefei, Anhui (安徽合肥), four men kidnapped Zhang Anni (张安妮), the 10-year-old daughter of Zhang Lin (张林), after the school let out, and took her to the local police station. There she was detained for 20 hours without being given food or water, or even a blanket to stay warm. Later, the police also searched Zhang Lin’s home, taking away his computer, cell phone, cash, and other important necessities. The father and daughter have […]

By Yaxue Cao, published: June 28, 2012   I almost forgot; I had been to Shanghai before. It was the Chinese New Year of 1990, I decided spontaneously to go to a friend’s home to spend the holidays. On New Year’s Eve, I boarded an airplane in Guangzhou, and landed, several hours later, at Hongqiao Airport in Shanghai. From the airport, I took a taxi to the Shanghai Train Station. I remember it was dusk, the sky overcast, the air chilling beyond a northerner’s assumption of Shanghai. There was not a soul on the streets. I don’t know why, but right at this moment, I am thinking about six o’clock. Two clicks away now, I know the trip is sixteen kilometers long, and passes a […]

I’ve been working on transcribing the diary of a missionary doctor who lived in Hefei (then called Lu Chow Fu) around the turn of the century. This passage, written by the doctor’s wife, struck me as particularly interesting for several reasons. Firstly, by the sheer number of people the doctor and his two assistants were able to treat in a year, and secondly by the fact that malaria had been such a major concern in central China. Last year there were only 24 deaths from the disease, and it has been eradicated in Hefei, this is a noteworthy achievement that is rarely mentioned. According to Wikipedia, the population of Hefei in 1930 was ~30,000. The following entry gives us an interesting glimpse of both the […]