Category: Hong Kong
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Weekly Wanderings: October 13, 2024
What a week. I try to think of everything that’s happened around the world in the past seven days and it feels like a grim verse from “We Didn’t Start the Fire (2024 Version).” I can barely keep up with the news, let alone read in-depth stories about it. And, in some ways, I just…
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Weekly Wanderings: September 29, 2024
September 28, 2014 marked the start of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement. While these protests were by no means the first mass activism in Hong Kong agains Beijing’s rule, they captured worldwide attention in a way that previous demonstrations had not. Student movement leaders like Joshua Wong and Nathan Law became media celebrities; photographers and journalists…
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Weekly Wanderings: August 25, 2024
At 4:00pm this past Friday, I shut down the computer in my office at the Association for Asian Studies and officially started a month-long sabbatical. I like my job very much—I’m fortunate to have found a position that keeps me tied in to academia while also devoting my days to reading, writing, and editing. After…
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Weekly Wanderings: August 4, 2024
Happy August, and thanks for reading. Recommendations China Stories James T. Areddy and Chun Han Wong, “Kamala Harris’s Record Offers Only Hints of a China Worldview” Migratory grief stems from the losses experienced when one moves away from home. These span both the physical and the intangible, which makes the grief a complicated process. The…
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Weekly Wanderings: July 21, 2024
Recommendations China Stories Amy Hawkins, “‘Garbage time of history’: Chinese state media pushes back on claims country has entered a new epoch” Amy Hawkins, “Wall Street Journal fires new chair of Hong Kong Journalists Association” Ryan Ho Kilpatrick, “Code of Silence” Timothy McLaughlin, “When the Press Turns Its Back on Press Freedom” John Ruwitch, “5…
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Weekly Wanderings: July 7, 2024
Greetings from Jakarta! I am in Indonesia for the briefest of long-haul trips—on the ground for six days, down to the hour—to work at the AAS-in-Asia conference this week. I arrived Saturday afternoon and will leave for the conference in Yogyakarta tomorrow morning, giving me one free day for some quick tourism. I walked around…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 30, 2024
At the AAS #AsiaNow blog, I have a new interview in my series of exchanges with authors (which you can now find all linked here at my website). This time, I talked with historian Douglas Ober about his first book, Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in Modern India. Ober takes on the…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 23, 2024
Recommendations China Stories “From Xinjiang With Love: China Show Tries to Give Region a Rosier Image” James T. Areddy, “Mandarin Leaves a Manhattan Courtroom Lost in Translation” In some ways, “vigilantes” are the opposite of what their name suggests: rather than rogue agents meting out street justice, they are individuals deemed trustworthy by authorities, working…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 16, 2024
A few years ago I ate dinner at The Delft Bistro in Marquette, the largest city on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I could guess from the large marquee outside and the film-themed decor inside that the building had once been a movie theater, and that the restaurant’s owners had decided to pay homage to that history…
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Weekly Wanderings: June 9, 2024
Readings on the 35th Anniversary of the June Fourth Massacre James T. Areddy, “35 Years After Tiananmen, China’s Conduct Again Triggers Alarm” The magnitude of calamity during Tiananmen can render any sensible soul speechless. But for those of us who are spared the firsthand trauma and accorded the luxury of critical distance, bearing witness demands…
Maura Elizabeth Cunningham 