Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

Good morning and happy Sunday from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where I’ve spent the last few days. The centerpiece of my trip was yesterday’s Milwaukee Half Marathon, but I seized the opportunity to work in some extra time in another new-to-me city. I’ve eaten some really good food (though no cheese curds; not yet, at least), toured some historic beer-related sites, and (of course) couldn’t pass up the National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum. I’ll share some more about all of that in a future post. In the meantime, I have a few hours left to enjoy the best Milwaukee has to offer and think about what I want to see here the next time I make it to the other side of Lake Michigan.

Thanks for joining me this week.

Recommendations

China Stories

China Books Review, “Shortlist: 2024 Nonfiction Book Award”—pick up some new reading recommendations from the inaugural Baifang Schell Book Prize jury members

In Beijing, the collective gaze of hundreds of Hong Kong journalists witnessed pivotal historical moments, encompassing both exhilarating highs and terrifying lows. They not only documented these scenes through text, radio, and television but also continuously recalled and recounted them in the three decades that followed. It is this initial documentation and subsequent remembrance that largely cemented June Fourth as a lasting concern and a collective memory for all of Hong Kong.

— China Unofficial Archives, “Hong Kong Journalists: Chroniclers of June Fourth and Keepers of its Memory”

Su Hsiao-Fan, “Sustaining the #MeToo Story”

Ali Wyne, “Three Potential Pitfalls of Trump’s Approach to China”

Wanderings Around the World

Lois Beckett, “As Trump ignites tariff war, a US city is embracing Canadians with all its heart”

Alison Cuddy, “A National Public Housing Museum Opens”

Juliana Kim, “‘Every day, every single customer’: Tariffs hit close to home inside Asian grocers”

The library is VERY much alive, my friends, and is such an important community space that’s not tied to consumerism or capitalism. How many places can you say that about anymore?

— Alicia Thompson, “What Is It About You That I Adore?”

Phoebe Weston, “‘We made everything bear-proof’: the Italian village that learned to love its bears”

Standout Story

Millennial Hobby Energy is going from growing four dahlias to growing 500. It’s running a couch-to-5K and then suddenly you’re making plans for two marathons a year. It’s falling down a quilting rabbit hole on TikTok and waking up with $800 worth of fabric. It’s going golfing for the first time in a decade and suddenly you’re going on four guys’ trips and have a closet full of golf-specific rain gear.

— Anne Helen Petersen, “What Is Millennial Hobby Energy?”

Given that exactly a decade ago I was slogging through my first 5K and now here I am planning trips around half marathons, this analysis by Anne Helen Petersen really hit home last week.

Featured photo: National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, April 10, 2025.