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Five Photos from the Tiananmen Vigil in Hong Kong
There are some amazing photographs at Business Insider from last night’s candlelight vigil in Hong Kong commemorating the June Fourth anniversary. Mine aren’t quite that good! But I did my best with the tools I had (a Canon PowerShot and my iPhone). I arrived at Victoria Park at 6:30, with the vigil scheduled to begin…
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Tiananmen at 25: Massive Reading Round-Up, June 3 Edition
Edward Wong of the New York Times tweeted the above yesterday, but I’m afraid the Chinese authorities are trying to close the barn door after the horse has escaped. As you can see below, foreign media are publishing Tiananmen stories left and right, and I’m afraid I did a very bad job trying to keep…
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Bookshelf: Lean In and Leftover Women
Possibly the most commented-on thing I’ve ever written online came about when I said that I didn’t really want to read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, a bestseller in which the Facebook COO encourages young women to take charge of their careers and aim for the top. Even though…
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Tiananmen at 25: Super-Sized Reading Round-Up
Now that June 4 is less than a week away, news organizations around the world are ramping up their coverage of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen protests and crackdown. Though I’ve been limiting these posts to five points each in previous weeks, there’s so much to recommend this week that I had to make…
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A New Act in Shanghai Security Theater
As I said a couple of days ago, there’s a much more visible police presence on the streets of Shanghai these days, particularly on major avenues like Nanjing and Huaihai Roads. The increased patrols started in the days leading up to Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin’s visit last week, and it seems that they’ll now…
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At Least I’m a Productive Procrastinator
You would not believe how many people have sent this comic my way lately: Apparently, there’s a vicious rumor circulating that I’m a world-class procrastinator. There is, perhaps, a grain of truth (but just a grain!) in that rumor. Of the 12 types of procrastinators pictured here, I am unquestionably ten of them: I’m not…
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Tiananmen at 25: The Weekly Reading Round-Up
As the June Fourth anniversary grows closer, security measures in China continue to tighten. The anniversary’s approach has also coincided with a spate of terrorist acts in China’s western region of Xinjiang, where explosive devices detonated in a market on Thursday morning killed 31 people and injured nearly 100 more. In Shanghai, a visit by…
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Overcoming a Fear of Chinese Banks
I’ve long had a deep-seated case of yinhangophobia, or the fear of Chinese banks (银行 yinhang=bank), and as a result done everything I could to avoid them. Part of my wariness came from direct experience: when I first arrived in China in 2005, I carried most of my money in traveler’s cheques, which had been…
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Bookshelf: Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow
There’s a tricky balance to writing well about expat life. Some people are so wide-eyed and enamored with their adopted homes that all they do is gush about how wonderful and fascinating and inspiring life abroad is. At the other end of the spectrum are writers who complain so relentlessly about the country they’re living…
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Tiananmen at 25: This Week’s Links
• There have been more detentions as the Beijing government works to ensure that no one is left voicing dissent on the day of the June Fourth anniversary. Anthony Kuhn of NPR News gives an overview of the recent crackdown in this Morning Edition report. Heather Timmons at Quartz has put together a list of…
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Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 