The theme of TIME’s Summer Journey issue this year is sports and games, and there are some China-related stories worth checking out. Hannah Beech writes about China’s sports schools, Bill Powell looks at street basketball and Hugh Porter examines the country’s fascination with snooker.
On Chinese Patriotism
In last week’s issue of TIME Asia guest writer Jiajia Liu, who was born in China and now lives in London, wrote about her feelings of pride for her homeland.
I left China in 1989, just after Tiananmen, when I was 7. My mother and I traveled to London to join my father, a Ph.D. student sponsored by the Chinese government. I grew up in
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A Gas Price Hike and Pain For Some
One of the big questions emerging out of Beijing’s decision to hike fuel prices last week is what effect it will have on inflation in China. Inflation has been a consistent headache for Chinese authorities over the last year. The rising price of food, particularly pork, has been the biggest contributor to rises in the consumer price …
Clearing Out Beijing Traffic for the Olympics
The Beijing government has announced its plans for car restrictions during the Olympics. These are one of the key measures to prevent the Games from being clouded by a toxic air. It’s been understood for a while that some sort of limitations would be placed on vehicle traffic in Beijing. What’s surprising is how early the measures will …
What It Takes to Build China
From the Oil Drum (via Foreign Policy’s Passport blog) comes an eye-popping graph on a most mundane subject: cement. As someone who complained earlier this week about the work going on just outside my bedroom, these figures shouldn’t be a surprise. And still. This is what happens when you take that seven-day-a-week construction and …
People’s Daily on Obama and the U.S. Election
Monday’s overseas edition of the People’s Daily has an essay about the presidential campaign of Barack Obama. As Ed Cody notes in the Washington Post, it focuses heavily and rather awkwardly on the issue of race. The overall argument of the People’s Daily piece is that Obama’s candidacy isn’t truly a step forward for equality. Here’s a …
The Unending Mess in My Neighborhood
Little is permanent in Beijing these days, but the construction work outside my house shows little sign of ever ending. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my neighborhood is in a frenzy preparing for the Games. Homes are being torn down and rebuilt, walls bricked over or painted, roofs and windows replaced. When this started there was …
Getting in Touch with My Feminine Virtual Alter Ego
A friend involved in Tibet issues writes to say that the latest in a constant stream of attacks on his email purportedly came from me. or at least my feminine side. He says he gets many of these kind of emails, which invariably ask him to open an attachment that almost certainly contains a type of virus called a Trojan horse that can …
Adopting Earthquake Orphans II
We’ve written before about the rush of inquiries in China about adopting kids orphaned by the Wenchuan earthquake. For any of our readers personally interested in pursuing this, the China Daily has a story on a notice issued by the Sichuan provincial authorities outlining eligibility and procedures. Bottom line: relatives get …
Ping Pong Diplomacy Rematch
Original team members from the 1971 ping pong diplomacy event will face-off again today at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in southern California. The event, which kicked off Tuesday with exhibitions and training sessions for students, will culminate in a rematch today between two of the original players: Tim Boggan, 77 (!!), and …
Tibet Shout Out
A heads up for our latest take on Tibet, which is actually an amplification with more reporting of an earlier blog post (see below). It really does seem like this is crunch time and if this opportunity is let slip by Beijing and things turn ugly again on the ground it could means years and years of misery. These things are always tricky …
CCTV Tower Update III
I am probably a little flippy about this building, the roughly 800 million dollar extravaganza that is to be the headquarters of China Central Television. But having posted pics of its progress several times (last one here in November) on this blog, I thought I’d keep up the tradition. The first picture gives you some idea of where the …
Olympic Security Tightening Further
Interesting AP report about a clash between Chinese officials concerned about security and foreign television executives trying to get their logistical ducks in a row for the Games. There’s a matching piece at the Guardian that also comments on the effects on the International Olympic Committee and the Games of what seems to be a growing …
