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China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know—The Second Edition
Back in the fall of 2011, Jeff Wasserstrom (with whom I’ve co-written several articles, and who’s also my dissertation advisor) asked me if I’d like to be a contributing author on the second edition of a book he’d published in 2010, China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know. Part of an Oxford…
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My Eighth China-versary
For some reason—I can’t recall ever making special note of the date before—I suddenly remembered this week that it was on February 15, 2005 that I boarded my first flight to China, leaving JFK for a long trip across the Pacific to study Chinese in Beijing. So today, the final day of the Chinese New…
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Rebuilding Haikou’s History on Zhongshan Street
I began my Hainan trip in the capital city of Haikou, on Sunday, with plans to head down to the beach town of Sanya, Hainan’s main attraction, on Monday. I thought that since my plane landed in Haikou, I might as well explore the city a bit and see what it had to offer, not…
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Ka-BOOM! The Year of the Snake Has Arrived
I kind of hate fireworks. They’re loud, they’re unpredictable, and they involve fire, which is something I like to stay far, far away from. But this week is the Chinese New Year holiday, and the #1 way to celebrate is to light enormous bundles of fireworks, then cheer as they explode. Everyone gets into the…
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Super Bowl Monday in Shanghai
One of the funny aspects of living abroad is that things from home that ordinarily wouldn’t interest you very much take on a new significance. I’ll almost always eat at least one meal in McDonald’s when I’m out of the U.S., even though I don’t normally like their food very much. In part, I want…
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January Recap
At the end of every year, journalist and photographer Howard French posts a list at his website of all the books he read during the preceding twelve months. I decided I wanted to start doing that in 2013, but the end of December seemed too far away—when I’m excited about a book, I want to…
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Blue Skies Smiling On Me
I probably overdid it a bit this morning. I was so excited by today’s good weather that I laced up my sneakers and headed out for a walk. A really long walk. Every time I thought about turning at the next intersection and looping back to my apartment, I decided to go just a little…
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The House of Bo Will Rise Again (Maybe)
Yesterday marked exactly ten months since Bo Xilai’s spectacular fall from grace on the Ides of March last year. His eventual fate is still unclear, though last week the Xinhua News Agency issued a terse announcement that Bo, the former Party Secretary of Chongqing, had been “handed over to judicial authorities,” meaning that he’s headed…
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Change of Pace
The Urbanatomy website used to run a series of interviews with China-connected authors under the title “Why I Write” (unfortunately, it seems that the archive is no longer online). But the series title was actually a little misleading: authors not only answered questions about why they wrote, but also how. Almost invariably, they cited the…
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Under Construction: Three Tales of Urban China
Shanghai: The Building Fifteen people gathered in the driveway outside my apartment building as Dad and I approached, many of them screaming at each other, while two policemen seemed content to stand there and watch. I wasn’t sure what to do. Walk through the crowd to get to my door? Join the group to find…
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Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 