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Wall Street Journal: Tiananmen Amnesia and Tiananmen Exiles
Now up at the Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time Report blog, my new column on Rowena Xiaoqing He’s recent book, Tiananmen Exiles: In “Tiananmen Exiles,” Ms. He interviews Shen Tong and Wang Dan, both important figures in the Beijing protest movement, as well as Yi Danxuan, who was a student leader in Guangzhou. All…
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Leftover Women: In Pictures
I began reading Leta Hong Fincher’s eagerly anticipated Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China last night, and one chapter in, I now know that the Marriage and Family Research Association here classifies me as a Category 3 Leftover Woman (ages 31-35, dubbed the “Buddha of victorious battles” for achieving professional advancement—though a…
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Tiananmen at 25: Voices Silenced
Heading into this spring, other China-watchers and I occasionally discussed the widespread crackdown on dissenting voices that President Xi Jinping implemented over his first year in office, and we all agreed that things would probably tighten even further as the 25th anniversary of the June Fourth massacre approached. Unfortunately, that prediction has proven true—even more…
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Lean In Too Much and You Might Fall Over
I’ve never before been to a conference panel that left both the speakers and audience in tears, but experienced that for the first time at the Western Association of Women Historians (WAWH) meeting yesterday. Titled “Leaning In, Opting Out, and Moving Up: A Roundtable on Women in the Academy,” the panel featured four women who…
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The Conference Dress
I call it “my conference dress.” An afterthought purchase at Kohl’s back in my second year of graduate school, the dress is now always the first thing I pack when going to any major conference where the outside temperature will be above 50 degrees. It’s black, made of a stretchy, drapey material that doesn’t cling…
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Tiananmen at 25: From the China Beat Archives
There has already been, and there will be much more, written about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and June Fourth Massacre as the 25th anniversary approaches. As I said, I’ll do my best to stay on top of it all and post links to good material here on a semi-regular basis. But in addition to…
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More Tiananmen at 25 Events and Readings
When I edited The China Beat, I would put together weekly(ish) posts that rounded up the best recent stories on China in general, or on a specific topic in the news. Those grew less frequent as our Twitter presence expanded and we just posted links there, but I think the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square…
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Tiananmen at 25: A Symposium at Saint Joseph’s University
Today, April 15, is the 25th anniversary of the death of Hu Yaobang. That’s a name that probably doesn’t ring a bell, unless you’re a China specialist, but Hu’s death in 1989 was the start of something big. A once-powerful government official who was purged in 1987, Hu had advocated for economic and political reforms…
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A Cold, Creamy Taste of Home
A lot of first-time visitors to China exclaim to me that they’re astounded to see so many familiar American chain restaurants. You can find McDonald’s, KFC, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks in all but the smallest cities (and even those will almost certainly have a KFC), but the country’s first-tier megalopolises (Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou) offer…
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LA Review of Books: Ping-Pong Powerhouses and Table Tennis Tales
I think this will be my final post related to last month’s literary festivals. I saw journalist Nicholas Griffin speak at the Capital M Litfest in Beijing about his new book, Ping-Pong Diplomacy: The Secret History Behind the Game that Changed the World, and not long after managed to get my hands on a copy.…
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Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 