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LA Review of Books: Hong Kong, Beyond the Neon Lights
I deliberately didn’t write much here about what I did during my Hong Kong trip in the middle of October, because I knew I wanted to save that material for my next LA Review of Books China Blog post. That’s now online, so here’s the story of my experiences walking two heritage trails in the…
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China in One Word: Mafan
Two years ago, Chinese author Yu Hua published a book called China in Ten Words. Each chapter is a short essay on contemporary China, the theme of which comes from the chapter’s title (“The People,” “Grassroots,” “Copycat,” etc.). It’s a wonderful book and has resulted in a party game of sorts for China academic types,…
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Partial Progress
Chapter 5 is now … uh, 76% done … but the Hitchhiker scarf is finished! I put it down on Sunday evening with only four (long) rows left to go, so after dinner last night I popped in a DVD and polished them off. If it weren’t unusually warm today (70 degrees and very sunny)…
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Still Life on a Sunday Afternoon
[Posted on a Monday morning because the Internet here was cranky last night and I only have so much patience—meaning, very little.] On the screen: Chapter 5 of my dissertation, about child welfare issues during the first years of the People’s Republic of China. Approximately 75% finished. On the needles: Hitchhiker scarf. Approximately 90% finished.…
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Hong Kong: The Snacker’s Paradise
I had a pretty simple itinerary for my weekend in Hong Kong: I wanted to relax; I wanted to see some new things; and I wanted to eat good food. There are plenty of high-end fine-dining restaurants here, but my gastronomic interests lay at the other end of the spectrum—snacks. Hong Kong might be the…
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Hong Kong Has Me a Little Off-Kilter
If you haven’t been to Hong Kong, I can now say with twenty-four hours’ worth of confidence that I highly recommend it. Excellent food (more on that soon, I promise), summery weather well into October, and plenty to see and do, even if you’re not a high-roller. There is much more to Hong Kong than…
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Birthday Resolutions
“Happy birthday!” the immigration officer at Hongqiao Airport said to me an hour ago as she stamped my boarding pass to Hong Kong. Her sentiment caught me off-guard; Chinese border officials rarely even return my greeting of “Ni hao” when I hand over my passport, let alone make small talk. The fact that she noticed…
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LA Review of Books: Troubled Waters
The LA Review of Books blog has a spiffy new layout, and they’ve also promoted me to co-editor of the China Blog. My latest post is now up at the site—a discussion of new writing on the Empress Dowager Cixi, who has long been blamed for all of China’s troubles in the late nineteenth and…
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In Praise of Pleco
A few weeks ago, I was in Beijing having dinner with a group of people that included journalist Christina Larson. The table’s conversation turned to our unanimous love of Pleco, which is an incredibly powerful Chinese dictionary app. Christina called me a few days later to interview me about my own use of Pleco, and…
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Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 