Maura Elizabeth Cunningham

Thanks for joining me this week.

Recommendations

China Stories

Susan Blumberg-Kason, “Social Mobility and Stagnation: How the university entrance exam and residency permits structure life for in China.”

Omkar Khandekar, Emily Feng, and Pankaj Dhungel, “India has long promised ‘vibrant’ border villages, as China speedily builds up” (audio)

Joseph Torigian, “Did Peng Zhen Rebel Against Mao?”

Decades of lived experience have taught Chinese society an empirical lesson: technology makes life tangibly better. I once wrote about my Shandong grandmother, now in her eighties, once walked five hours to buy a clock so her children could get to school on time. Today her Xiaomi phone has given her an online shopping addiction, and delivery drones fly above her apartment. For many in China, industrialization compressed and bent time itself—and AI simply looks like the next turn of a wheel that has only ever spun forward. — Afra Wang, “An AI-Maxi New Year”

Vivian Wang, “China’s ‘King of Banned Films’ Wants to Change the Subject”

Lingling Wei, “How China’s Xi Purged His ‘Big Brother’ to Achieve Absolute Power”

Chun Han Wong and Roque Ruiz, “China Watchers Are Trying to Spot the Next Target of Xi’s Purges”

Wanderings Around the World

Howard Amos, “The Family Memoirs Uncovering a Different History of the 20th Century”

Miranda Bryant, “Beats and throat singing: Sámi DJs tap into growing pride in Indigenous identity”

Sam Knight, “What the Royal Family’s Links to Slavery Mean in the Age of Epstein”

Elian Peltier and Zia ur-Rehman, with visuals by Saiyna Bashir, “In Pakistan, a Kite Festival Returns to Troubled Skies”

Featured photo: Gyeonghuigung Palace, Seoul, South Korea, June 30, 2023.