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Liangyou: Kaleidoscopic Modernity and the Shanghai Global Metropolis, 1926-1945
One of the nice things about going to UC Irvine is that during my coursework years, I had the option of taking classes at any other UC campus at no cost beyond a little bit of paperwork and administrative hassle. For one reason or another, though, it never worked out before my third year as…
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Holding My Breath
Just after noon on Saturday—three hours behind schedule—China Eastern Airlines Flight 721 broke through the clouds on its ascent from Shanghai Hongqiao Airport. From my seat in the middle of the plane, I turned my head left and looked out the window. For the first time in five days, I saw blue sky. Shanghai doesn’t…
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Fourteen Books for 2014
I acquire a lot of books. My mother receives all my Amazon packages in Philadelphia, so I’m sure she’ll confirm this statement—and those are only the physical books that I buy! My Kindle gets fed on a regular basis, too, and book publishers often send me review copies of new titles so I can write…
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Postcard from Hangzhou
I spent the weekend in Hangzhou, a pleasant “small” city of almost 9 million people, which sits an hour away from Shanghai by train. I had been to Hangzhou before—during the summer of 2006, I attended the CET language program there to work on my Chinese—but this trip was far better for several reasons. Two…
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Thanksgiving Comfort Food
I have gotten pretty used to non-traditional Thanksgiving dinners. Since 2005, I have made it to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving with my family precisely once, and four of those years away have been in China, where turkey and stuffing can be hard to come by. Like The Atlantic’s Matt Schiavenza, I have turned to a Chinese…
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LA Review of Books: The UC System Is Failing Its Graduate Students
What I didn’t completely understand when I accepted UC Irvine’s offer of admission almost six years ago was that I wasn’t just enrolling in a school; I was marrying a university system. And the UC system, I have learned, is one of the most dysfunctional families imaginable. The latest episode to stir up graduate student…
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Nanjing in One Day
I lived in Nanjing for two years, from 2006 to 2008. During those years, the best thing that happened to the city, as far as I was concerned, was the introduction of high-speed rail service that cut the travel time between Nanjing and Shanghai in half. Nanjing is a fine city, and there are certainly…
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Bookshelf: Around India in 80 Trains
When I served as a chaperone for a group of UC Irvine students on a three-week tour of India in 2010, our in-country guide clearly had no intention of letting us step foot on an Indian train. Though trains running between Delhi and Agra, where the Taj Mahal is located, cover the journey in only…
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The Invasion of the GIANT ANTS
I have seen a lot of bugs since moving to Shanghai, but never have I seen ants this big. Or this colorful. The giant ants comprise a small sculpture exhibit located outside a mall on West Nanjing Road (just west of the intersection with Huashan Road, if you’re in Shanghai and want to check them…
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Halloween in the ’Hai
Family and friends often ask me how Western holidays are celebrated in China. Christmas decorations are very popular here now, particularly in luxury malls, and young couples have embraced Valentine’s Day wholeheartedly. But Halloween hasn’t really caught on yet. One of the things that surprised me when I was in Hong Kong was seeing how…
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Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 