ChinaFile Recommends
07.21.16Uber Backers Said to Push for Didi Truce in Costly China War
Bloomberg
Several institutional investors are pushing Uber to ink a partnership agreement with Didi Chuxing.
Features
07.12.16You Ask How Deeply I Love You
“Back when I was a soldier on Kinmen, around 1975, the water demons still sometimes killed people,” Xu Shifu (Master Xu) said. The laugh-lines at the corners of his eyes were not visible now, even in the white fluorescent light shining down from the...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.12.16Pokémon Chasers in China Hit Brick Wall
Wall Street Journal
The popular app is unavailable in China, but players are still trying....
The China Africa Project
07.12.16China Was Once a Hot Destination for African Migrants, Not Any More
It was not that long ago that entire neighborhoods in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou were overflowing with African migrants. Although there are no precise figures, scholars estimated that between 20,000-100,000 African immigrants used to...
Sinica Podcast
07.11.16The Street of Eternal Happiness
from Sinica Podcast
Rob Schmitz, China correspondent for Marketplace, has been living in China on and off since 1995. He is the author of Street of Eternal Happiness: Big City Dreams Along a Shanghai Road, a book about the people living and working on Changle Lu in...
ChinaFile Recommends
07.07.16China to Pillory, or Praise, Cities Based on Water Pollution
New York Times
Water and soil pollution have received less attention than foul air but are just as hazardous, if not more so.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.07.16China’s Devastating Floods Can Be Traced Back to Corruption and Overbuilding
Quartz
Scandals are not uncommon in China’s flood-control projects.
ChinaFile Recommends
07.06.16This Dystopian Film From Hong Kong Shows Exactly Why Activism Matters
Fusion
“Ten Years” depicts the ripple effect of the Umbrella Movement in China past two years....
Depth of Field
07.01.16Tornados and Drag Queens
from Yuanjin Photo
Being a photojournalist involves reacting to breaking news, a dedication to long-term projects, and everything in between. This month’s showcase of work by Chinese photographers published in Chinese media underscores this range of angles: from the...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.28.16‘Destined to Disappear’: The Last Generation of China’s ‘Bang-Bang’ Army
New York Times
Itinerant porters face a vocational extinction in the towering hills of Chongqing....
ChinaFile Recommends
06.27.16Uber Positions Its China App as More than a Ride-Hailing Service
TechCrunch
Uber’s new vision for China includes two new offerings, UberLIFE and Uber + Travel, which will roll out across China this year.
Conversation
06.24.16Is Europe Prepared to Deal with the China Challenge?
Chinese President Xi Jinping is on a grand tour of the western end of the “New Silk Road,” in visits to Serbia and Poland this week before he returns to Beijing via Uzbekistan, a more eastern outpost on China’s expanding 21st Century trade route. Xi...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.21.16Trainer Seen on Video Spanking Bankers For Poor Performance
CBS News
Bad press for corporate motivational coach who is wacking employees for not reaching full potential....
ChinaFile Recommends
06.21.16China’s New Love Affair With Dogs—As Pets, Not Food—Presents Environmental Problems
Deutsche Welle
A culture shift could have an effect on China’s CO2 emissions....
ChinaFile Recommends
06.16.16Uber Rival’s $28 Billion Valuation Shows Size of China’s Ride-Sharing Market
New York Times
Recent fund-raising rounds in the ride-sharing market show that China is one of the most expensive markets in the world.
Books
06.15.16Street of Eternal Happiness
Modern Shanghai: a global city in the midst of a renaissance, where dreamers arrive each day to partake in a mad torrent of capital, ideas, and opportunity. Marketplace’s Rob Schmitz is one of them. He immerses himself in his neighborhood, forging deep relationships with ordinary people who see in the city’s sleek skyline a brighter future and a chance to rewrite their destinies. There’s Zhao, whose path from factory floor to shopkeeper is sidetracked by her desperate measures to ensure a better future for her sons. Down the street lives Auntie Fu, a fervent capitalist forever trying to improve herself with religion and get-rich-quick schemes while keeping her skeptical husband at bay. Up a flight of stairs, musician and café owner CK sets up shop to attract young dreamers like himself, but learns he’s searching for something more. As Schmitz becomes more involved in their lives, he makes surprising discoveries which untangle the complexities of modern China: A mysterious box of letters that serve as a portal to a family’s—and country’s—dark past, and an abandoned neighborhood where fates have been violently altered by unchecked power and greed.A tale of 21st century China, Street of Eternal Happiness profiles China’s distinct generations through multifaceted characters who illuminate an enlightening, humorous, and at times heartrending journey along the winding road to the Chinese Dream. Each story adds another layer of humanity and texture to modern China, a tapestry also woven with Schmitz’s insight as a foreign correspondent. The result is an intimate and surprising portrait that dispenses with the tired stereotypes of a country we think we know, immersing us instead in the vivid stories of the people who make up one of the world’s most captivating cities. —Crown Publishers {chop}
ChinaFile Recommends
06.14.16Disney Shares Keys To Magic Kingdom With China
New York Times
A much needed partnership leaves the Communist Party with final say in everything from admssion price to ride design....
ChinaFile Recommends
06.14.16China’s Call To Young Men: Your Nation Needs Your Sperm
New York Times
Sperm banks get creative with cash and iPhone incentives....
ChinaFile Recommends
06.14.16China Evicts Hundreds To Make Way For Disney Park
CBS News
Shanghai residents and businesses are displaces with little to no compensation....
ChinaFile Recommends
06.08.16L’Oreal Is Setting A Dangerous Global Precedent By Bowing to China Over Free Speech
Quartz
Lancome cancels concert to appeal to the mainland, sacrificing freedoms for their parnerships....
Depth of Field
05.31.16Families, Weddings, and Beekeepers
from Yuanjin Photo
This month’s Depth of Field column brings the stories of Chinese adoption; the marriage ceremony of Hu Mingliang and Sun Wenlin, a gay couple who filed the first civil rights marriage lawsuit to be accepted by a Chinese court (they lost); beekeepers...
Green Space
05.18.16Time Traveling Through Dramatic Urbanization in China Over Decades
Twenty-six years ago, only 26 percent of the Chinese population lived in urban areas. Since then, China’s urbanization rate has risen to almost 56 percent, meaning hundreds of millions of people have packed themselves into the country’s 662 cities...
Depth of Field
04.29.16April’s Best Chinese Photojournalism
from Yuanjin Photo
Over the past few weeks, the publications Sina, Tencent, Caixin, China Youth Daily, and the publishing duo Sixth Tone/The Paper published photo stories on the intimate, the industrial, the private, and the political. Journalists Yan Cong and Ye Ming...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.19.16Supertall 101
99% Invisible
Starting in the late 1990s, the government of Taipei began looking into how they could turn global attention to their city, the capital of the small island of Taiwan.The initial idea was to create two 66-story...
ChinaFile Recommends
04.05.16When It Comes to Luxury, China Still Leads
New York Times
A younger and more sophisticated generation of shoppers is emerging, who are educated, well-traveled and tech-savvy.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.14.16China Minister Warns on Subsidies As Uber, Didi Battle
Agence France-Presse
Ride-booking services have threatened the old-style taxi sector and contributed to cab drivers' protests.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.10.16Victoria's Secret, Nike Cashes in On Rising Girl Power in China
Forbes
Despite the country’s recent economic downturn, Chinese female consumers are willing to buy.
ChinaFile Recommends
03.08.16China Desperately Needs Low-Income Migrant Workers to Buy Homes and Save the Economy
Quartz
You can't ignore the lower-end demand because there is none at the higher end.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.24.16Gate-Crash! China’s New Housing Rules Irk the Gilded Classes
Time
New directive says roads in private housing estates should “gradually open up” to the public.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.22.16China: No More Weird Buildings
CNN
New guidelines will forbid the construction of "bizarre" and "odd-shaped" buildings that are devoid of character or cultural heritage.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.16.16India and China Have Most Deaths from Pollution
Wall Street Journal
Indian and Chinese fatalities accounted for 55% of pollution-related deaths worldwide.
Sinica Podcast
02.09.16Sauced: American Cooking in China
from Sinica Podcast
Kaiser Kuo and David Moser are joined this week by Howie Southworth and Greg Matza, creators of the independent video series “Sauced in Translation,” a reality show that journeys into the wilder parts of China in search of local Chinese specialties...
ChinaFile Recommends
02.08.16Millions of Chinese Migrant Workers Head Home for New Year
Voice of America
Every year tens of millions of Chinese migrant workers head home in the largest annual mass migration of people.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.04.16The Unreal, Eerie Emptiness of China’s Ghost Cities
Wired
Kangbashi is one of hundreds of sparkling new cities sitting relatively empty throughout China, built by a government eager to urbanize the country.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.03.16How China's Celebration of the Year of the Monkey Breaks Down by the Numbers
Los Angeles Times
Here’s a further look at the celebrations and some more related numbers.
ChinaFile Recommends
02.03.16China Sends 6,000 Police to Quell New Year Train Station Chaos
Guardian
Tens of thousands still waiting for transport at Guangzhou main rail depot.
Caixin Media
01.26.16How Serial Killers Terrorized China’s Disorganized Elder Care Industry
The 45-year-old caregiver was calm on the witness stand, but her words were jarring. He Tiandai admitted during her murder trial that she killed a 70-year-old woman she cared for by poisoning her soup with sleeping pills and pesticide, injecting her...
Environment
01.11.16Chinese Cities Most at Risk from Rising Sea Levels
from chinadialogue
A study by Climate Central, a non-profit news organization focusing on climate science, showed that 12 other nations have more than 10 million people living on land that would be destroyed should the earth’s temperature rise to 4 degrees Celsius.As...
ChinaFile Recommends
01.01.16China's Two-Child Policy Comes into Effect
Deutsche Welle
The Chinese government implemented the law after concerns related to the country's shrinking population and aging workforce.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.25.15Chinese Official Vows Punishment Over Shenzhen Landslide
New York Times
Ma Xingrui expressed remorse during a televised news conference five days after dirt and waste smothered buildings and buried 75 people.
Sinica Podcast
12.17.15Out of Africa: the Swifts of Beijing
from Sinica Podcast
With amazing research now suggesting that Beijing swifts, the tiny creatures most residents pass by without noticing, are some of the most well-travelled birds on the planet, averaging an astonishing 124,000 miles of flight in their lifetimes,...
Media
12.15.15The Proletariat Experience of Beijing’s Airpocalypse
On December 8, a Tuesday, a man surnamed Cao piloted his electric scooter along Beijing’s profoundly hazy streets, parking in front of one towering apartment complex after another to deliver packages. Although the government had just issued a “red...
ChinaFile Recommends
12.07.15Xi'an City Wall: How China Turned A Military Site Into A Unique Park
CNN
Xi'an, China's 637-year-old city wall is a relatively new kid on the block.
ChinaFile Recommends
12.03.15Why China's Millennials Are Happy to Own Nothing
Bloomberg
Two decades ago, Tyler Xiong and his parents had to live in a commune guided by the strict socialist teachings of Mao Zedong.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.30.15The Sham Marriage App Helping China’s Gay Community
Telegraph
With homosexuality illegal until 1997 and prejudice still rife, gays and lesbians are increasingly joining forces with the help of matchmaking apps
ChinaFile Recommends
11.27.15Beware of China's Safety Record
New York Times
Chinese people have paid heavily for a flawed system. Now that Chinese-style construction and management are going global, what price is the world prepared to pay?
ChinaFile Recommends
11.19.15China's Middle Class Isn't What We Thought It Was
Business Insider
For years, multinational companies have been rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the growth of the Chinese middle class.
Caixin Media
11.18.15Government Enlists NGOs to Help Homeless
Drivers roll up car windows as an autumn wind chills a traffic-clogged overpass in western Beijing’s Liuliqiao area. And under the concrete overpass, homeless people are gathering for a chilly night’s rest after wandering city streets.Among the...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.16.15The Young Foreigners Embedded in Chinese Local Government
Financial Times
Communist China has a long history of recruiting foreign experts to advise state-owned companies and teach at universities.
ChinaFile Recommends
11.16.15China's Napoleon Complex
Foreign Affairs
With Deng’s political reforms in the 1980s and 1990s came increased discrimination based on appearance.
Sinica Podcast
11.16.15The Pace of Change in Beijing: Live at the Bookworm, Part I
from Sinica Podcast
This week’s Sinica podcast was recorded last month during a special live event at the Bookworm literary festival, where David Moser and Kaiser Kuo were joined by Jeremy Goldkorn, fresh off the plane from Nashville. Topics in this podcast: Beijing...
ChinaFile Recommends
11.04.15How Smartphones are Solving One of China’s Biggest Mysteries
Washington Post
For decades, China has been engaged in a building boom of a scale that is hard to wrap your mind around.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.30.1520 Photos That Show How Insanely Crowded China Has Become
Business Insider
China has reportedly dropped its long-standing one-child policy, which was first enacted decades ago in an effort to curb overpopulation.The current population rests at around 1.4 billion after having the policy in place for over 35 years. Only time...
ChinaFile Recommends
10.29.15Crouching Trekker, Hidden Buildings: China's Urban Explorers
Guardian
Intrepid urbexers are wandering through the industrial wastelands of China.
ChinaFile Recommends
10.28.15Hong Kong Is the Happiest Place in China, According to WeChat Posts
Quartz
Hong Kong is home to the happiest people in Greater China, closely followed by Taiwan, according to Tencent.
Caixin Media
10.20.15Moving 2 Million People for Beijing’s Urban Reset
Nearly 2 million Beijing residents will be moved to the city’s outlying districts from the center by 2020 as part of a massive urban revamp designed to better control people, traffic, and smog.The movers include up to 1 million government workers...