On the run in China: Chen Guangcheng escapes!
Chen Guangcheng is an activist in China’s northern Shandong Province. He is blind and lives in the tiny rural village of Dongshigu, where he fought for the rights of peasants and especially women who faced forced sterilization and other abuses. He was imprisoned more than 4 years for his efforts and then placed under house [...]
Foreign Men, Represent
If I were single and still in the Game, I would hold myself and all others to an oath of silence on the sociological phenomenon of overeducated, fine-lookin, lonely young ladies populating Starbuxes all across China. But I am out of the game and busy raising two of the most handsome muggle men this world [...]
Calcified Culture, or Unique Characters?
This essay might sound a bit familiar, if you read this blog, as I seem to be circling the idea of change as a possibility. Last essay I wrote on this topic was Silk Roads and Great Walls, and that dealt briefly with the high-level impediments, this one here is a look at the grassroots [...]
The sins of the father …
I was struck today by John Garnaut’s profile of General Liu Yuan, embedded in an investigation into PLA corruption. What moved me and stopped me in my tracks, and made me come back here to write this, is the revelation that Liu Yuan is the “last surviving male descendant of Liu Shaoqi”. I know little [...]
Bo Xilai’s Dream
Something is happening across China, something impossible to stop and with consequences difficult to foresee. It began with the death of Deng Xiaoping, continued with the Jiang Zemin-Zhu Rongji era and has now reached the point just before chaos. It helped give rise to Bo Xilai and his pretentions to the throne, defined his entire [...]
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