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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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Socks With a Story
I could feel her creeping closer to me, watching me. The subway car was almost deserted, and I had been entirely alone on a long bench before she boarded the train and sat down at the other end. But over the past minute, she’d slid closer and closer until I could feel her within a…
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Have Yourself a Merry Mini Christmas?
I live a 15-minute walk away from West Nanjing Road, Shanghai’s version of Rodeo Drive. This busy street is lined on both sides by luxury brand stores and massive high-end shopping malls, almost all of which are now decorated for Christmas. I was walking home via Nanjing Road last night when I passed by one…
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The Bridges of Taishun County
Guidebooks, as I’ve said before, are a great planning aid when I want to go somewhere specific or just want to browse for travel ideas. But guidebooks, of course, have an inherent limitation: they only describe those places that have already landed on the tourist’s map. In China, this often means that fascinating but difficult…
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The Ghosts of Moganshan
Saturday, November 10: Moganshan is a ghostly place, particularly on a foggy day in early November. We arrived at the top of the mountain late Saturday morning, and after a slow lunch in one of the few restaurants open during the off-season, I set off alone to explore. I followed a newly built set of…
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On the Road
Saturday, November 10, 8:20 a.m.: The highway cutting across Zhejiang province is smooth and empty, its three lanes containing only a few trucks and tour buses in addition to our own. Just beyond the barricade separating the road from the fields that sit beside it, billboards rise every few hundred feet. Visit Xitang. Buy China…
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The 18th Party Congress: A Shanghai Perspective
It’s been happening at least once, and generally more like two or three times, per day this week: I’ll be working away on my computer when things suddenly slow down. Gmail stops responding. Apple Mail goes offline. Google searches take minutes instead of seconds, and end in a message that “the server could not be…
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Where Am I?
I’ve been experiencing the strangest feeling lately: from time to time, I forget that I’m in China. I know this sounds absurd. After all, China seems like it’s almost inherently the polar opposite of the United States; every day here should be full of reminders that I’m in a different country, living inside a different…
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Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 