Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

Only links from me this week—thanks for reading, and enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

China Stories
Sophie Beach, “Interview with Lhadon Tethong on Tibet’s Colonial Boarding Schools: ‘They Are Stealing an Entire Generation’”
Rachel Harris, “China has sentenced Rahile Dawut to life in prison and would like the world to forget her. We must not.”
Michelle Kuo, “Dare to Leave a Trace: On A City of Sadness”
Shibani Mahtani and Ore Huiying, “China’s promise of prosperity brought Laos debt — and distress”
Alexandra Stevenson, “China Releases Australian Journalist Three Years After Arrest”
Ian Urbina, “The Uyghurs Forced to Process the World’s Fish”

Wanderings Around the World
Ilir Gashi, “The Balkans’ alternative postal system: an ad-hoc courier’s tale”
Laura M. Holson, “Confessions of a Pop-Tarts Taste Tester”
Bailey Johnson, “She started playing hockey in 1975. At 83, she’s still going.”
Kenda Mutongi, “Through a car window in a Nairobi traffic jam, a view of global economics”
David Von Drehle, “A memorial restores humanity to the 146 ghosts of the Triangle Fire”

Standout Story
“The Global Times Translated My Op-Ed. Here’s What They Changed.”

Back in May, Harvard’s Dan Murphy wrote an op-ed on US-China engagement in science for the New York Times. Hyper-nationalistic Chinese newspaper the Global Times subsequently picked up the piece and translated it, without permission from either Murphy or the NYT—and with a few key omissions and changes. After the New York Times contacted the Global Times about this breach of professional ethics, the GT removed its translation of Murphy’s article from its website.

At ChinaFile, you can see the GT version of Murphy’s op-ed, in a feature that highlights what the Chinese publication deleted and where it changed the original language. As Murphy explains in a headnote to the article, “documenting differences between the original and the Global Times translation can help us to understand what Chinese censors might find acceptable,” though that itself is a constantly shifting target.

Feature photo: The Philadelphia Flyers play to a 4-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets, October 12, 2023.