ZGBriefs | August 25, 2016

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Featured Article

Cradle of Tofu (August 18, 2016, The World of Chinese)
With the possible exceptions of rice and dumplings, few foods seem as intrinsically tied to Chinese culture as tofu. But despite its widespread popularity throughout China and vegetarians everywhere, the origins of this food remain shrouded in mysteries of Chinese kings obsessed with finding an elixir for immortality.

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Government / Politics / Foreign Affairs

Why Millennials Are Excited About the 90th Birthday of China’s Ex-President (August 17, 2016, China Real Time)
“It’s very simple,” says Zhang Ming, a political scientist at Beijing’s Renmin University. “People right now aren’t satisfied…When he was in office, everyone said bad things about him. Now people miss him more and more.” “They miss that era,” he said. “It was freer.”

While fighting in Syria, the Turkestan Islamic Party has joined forces with global jihadist movements. (August 17, 2016, The Diplomat)
The globalization of Uyghur jihadists from the Turkestan Islamic Party, along with their separatist ideology, have become major problems for China. Beijing’s repressive policies in Xinjiang have pushed some Uyghurs to move from nationalism into the arms of Islamic extremists.

US-China Relations: The Long View (August 24, 2016, The Diplomat)
Ambassador Roy, with a U.S. diplomatic career spanning 45 years and leadership role in facilitating U.S.-PRC rapprochement in 1978, what worries and encourages you most about the future of U.S.-China relations?

Chinese politics from the provinces (August 24, 2016, Politics from the Provinces)
The making of local public policies in China is different from many other countries. Deliberation isn’t open, and public input is erratic, even in the provinces where Beijing’s control isn’t so draconian. Decision-making here is akin to throw-switches on generators or pumps that are dormant until something shifts, or someone thinks that they’re needed. 

Religion

Chinese Catholics split over cardinal’s article about China-Vatican negotiations (August 18, 2016, Global Times)
How China and the Vatican City will improve ties has been under close scrutiny in recent months, with a top Catholic Church leader recently hinting that talks between the two sides over the key bishop appointing issue have made progress.

China's Zhejiang Bans Religious Activities in Hospitals as Crackdown Widens (August 18, 2016, Radio Free Asia)
Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Zhejiang have banned all forms of religious activity in hospitals in an ongoing crackdown targeting the region's burgeoning Protestant Christian community. A public notice posted at the Central Hospital in Zhejiang's Wenzhou, a city that has been dubbed "China's Jerusalem" because of its high concentration of Christians, made patients and their visitors unequivocally aware of the new rules this week.

Daoism: Yesterday and Today (August 22, 2016, From the West Courtyard)
I once had a discussion with my Chinese professor about the influences of Confucianism and Daoism (Taoism) in the worldview of Chinese people. “You have to understand,” he told me, “that we are Confucian when things are going well, when we have position and authority, and when life is hard for us and we are ‘down and out,’ we are Daoists.”

5 Challenges Facing Churches in China (August 23, 2016, Chinese Church Voices)
The Gospel Times recently published an article written by a pastor in Xiamen on what he considers to be some of the key challenges facing the church in China today.

Why Crosses? Why Zhejiang? (August 24, 2016, From the West Courtyard)
According to Vala, the conspicuous attack on crosses is tied to the conspicuous nature of Christianity in Zhejiang, particularly in the city of Wenzhou, where for decades massive churches topped with crosses have dotted the skyline.

Society / Life

Canadian woman’s case galvanizes Chinese moms in custody battles (August 19, 2016, Globe and Mail)
On Jan. 31, 2014, under a cloud of anger, Dai Xiaolei left her 17-month-old son with her in-laws in a small town southwest of Beijing. She has not seen him since. Instead, she has been thrust into a marital and legal battle with an abusive spouse, one that has made her a public face of problems mothers encounter in China, where families regularly solve child custody cases by abduction and courts often treat possession as nine-tenths of the law, even when husbands have been violent.

China’s Corpse Salvagers Profit From Misfortune (August 20, 2016, Sixth Tone)
Hundreds of people went missing as a result of China’s summer of heavy rains, floods, mudslides, and dike breaches, according to the latest figures, and most of the missing have since been found dead. Around the country, opportunistic scavengers make money when they find these lost bodies.

These are the 20 ‘Uncivilized’ Chinese Tourists Who Are Banned from Traveling (August 22, What’s on Weibo)
China’s National Tourist Bureau recently issued new public travel regulations that restrict or blacklist Chinese tourists from traveling if they behave ‘uncivilized’. At present, these 20 Chinese tourists are already blacklisted.

Exit the Dragon? Kung Fu, Once Central to Hong Kong Life, Is Waning (August 22, 2016, The New York Times)
Gone are the days when “kung fu was a big part of people’s cultural and leisure life,” said Mak King Sang Ricardo, the author of a history of martial arts in Hong Kong. “After work, people would go to martial arts schools, where they’d cook dinner together and practice kung fu until 11 at night.”

Controversial Chairman Mao tribute concerts sharpen Chinese community divide (August 22, 2016, Sydney Morning Herald)
A planned concert series next month glorifying the life of controversial Communist Party icon Chairman Mao at the Sydney and Melbourne town halls has sparked outrage among Chinese-Australians, while serving to highlight the widening schism within the local diaspora.

Inside Shanghai Tower: China's tallest skyscraper claims to be world's greenest (August 23, 2016, The Guardian)
The Shanghai Tower is another in a long list of ambitious skyscrapers competing fiercely for sustainability credentials as well as height. But how ‘green’ are these buildings – and is environmentalism really the motivation?

China's ghost weddings and why they can be deadly (August 24, 2016, BBC)
Police in north-west China have charged a man with murdering two women with mental disabilities, alleging that he wanted to sell their corpses to be used in so-called "ghost weddings". It has put a spotlight on the ancient shadowy ritual, still practised in certain parts of China, which aims to provide spouses for people who die unmarried.

Photo Gallery: A Newer New Frontier: Beijing’s Ambitious Plans for Xinjiang (August 24 2016, China File)
From February 2015 through January 2016, as an Abigail Cohen Fellow in Documentary Photography, Liu sought out participants in the government’s program, visited a compressor factory where many of them worked, and hung around their dormitories. He also traveled to Kashgar, to see how the workers’ experiences in Guangdong affected their communities back home and to gauge Beijing’s efforts to grow Xinjiang’s economy.

Economics / Trade / Business

Five Things to Look For When Visiting Ghost Cities in China (August 17, 2016, China Real Time)
During seven years covering China’s property market, our correspondent has visited more than a few. One discovery: many were not as derelict as believed. Should you want to try your own hand, here are five things to look for when assessing how abandoned these new satellite cities and towns are.

Ikea Set to Offer Online Shopping in China, But Initially Snubs Beijing (August 22, 2016, The Beijinger)
Should Jack Ma start sweating? The famed Chinese e-commerce mogul may have some stiff competition to contend with in the coming months, as Swedish multinational Ikea – famed for its designing and selling of convenient, ready-to-assemble furniture – rolls out its own online shopping platform.

How a Hong Kong Filmmaker Came Across a New Kind of Tibetan Business (August 24, 2016, The New York Times)
Her research led her to Norlha, a textile workshop in the village of Zorge Ritoma, in a region of Gansu Province known as Amdo to Tibetans.

When Your China Employee Leaves (August 24, 2016, China Law Blog)
When it comes to unilaterally terminating the employment contract, China employment law does not treat the employee and the employer as equal parties; the employee has much more power than the employer.

The Fight to Save the World’s Seas From China’s Bloated Fishing Industry (August 24, 2016, TIME)
New data from environmental groups indicates that Chinese fishing ships are disguising their true location via cloaking devices, employing destructive fishing techniques and flouting the territorial boundaries of sovereign nations

Education

One million U.S. students could be studying Mandarin by 2020 (August 19, 2016, PBS)
A multinational effort to boost the number of U.S. students studying abroad in China has expanded its focus to stateside Mandarin language learning. The push, led by the US-China Strong Foundation, aims to increase the number of American students studying the language to one million by 2020, a five-fold increase.

Science / Technology

China's mobile network speed surpasses US (August 19, 2016, China Daily)
With the deployment of 4G network, China's mobile network speed achieved around 18Mbps on average in August this year, outpacing countries like the United States and the United Kingdom in the same period. That's according to a report by OpenSignal, a mobile network evaluating app.

The Great Quantum Leap (August 19, 2016, The World of Chinese)
“Hack-proof” is the term being thrown around in regard to China’s new satellite, launched from Gansu on the August 16, and those with a passing knowledge of quantum entanglement understand why.

History / Culture

Video: The Tibetan nomad traditions defying the modern world (August 18, 2016, BBC)
Despite decades of change and development, nomads still migrate to the Tibetan Plateau every summer, from where China Correspondent Stephen McDonell reports.

An Alternative History for China (August 19, 2016, Foreign Policy)
What if the open-minded and progressive Zhao Ziyang had held onto power

Cultural Revolution-Era Conviction Haunts School Principal (August 24, 2016, Sixth Tone)
A little over 40 years ago, at the tail end of the chaotic, decade-long Cultural Revolution, 34-year-old school principal Chen Jiaqian was escorted to his public sentencing rally.

Sports / Arts / Media

China's Olympians disappoint their government, but not the people (+video) (August 18, 2016, Christian Science Monitor)
Official Beijing is upset by China's relatively meager medals haul in Rio. But ordinary citizens are showing more sympathy for the athletes – and less for nationalistic chest-thumping.

Mountains May Depart: A Film Review (August 19, 2016, From the West Courtyard)
In his latest film, Mountains May Depart, Jia once again sets the stage in his hometown of Fenyang in Shanxi province, China. The story begins with a love triangle set in 1999. Tao (played by Jia’s wife, Zhao Tao), a young beauty in her 20s has caught the eye of the rich but temperamental young businessman, Jinsheng, but is also being pursued by her loyal coal-miner friend, Liangzi. Against her better judgment, she chooses the former, and soon after gives birth to their son, Dollar.

Beijing clamps down on news portals, ordering round the clock monitoring (August 19, 2016, South China Morning Post)
Beijing has tightened control over online news websites, ordering editors-in-chief to take full responsibility for any wrong­doings and implementing around the clock monitoring, state media reported on Thursday.

Golden Girl of China Volleyball Finds Redemption in Olympic Triumph (August 22, 2016, China Real Time)
For China, capturing Olympic gold in women’s volleyball ended 12 years in the wilderness as faded giants of the sport. For Lang Ping, a former star player turned head coach, the victory in Rio sealed a sweet personal redemption.

6 Chinese Artists Who Aren’t Ai Weiwei (August 22, 2016, Wild China Blog)
Perhaps the most acclaimed living Chinese artist/activist known to Western audiences, Ai Weiwei’s influence on the Chinese and global arts scene resonates through his extensive body of work. Yet he is just one of many contemporary artists whose work has helped in shaping a post-Cultural Revolution art scene since China opened her doors to the world in 1976.

How China’s Provinces Fight One Another for Olympic Glory (August 22, 2016, Sixth Tone)
Different Chinese regions team up to increase their chances of getting their athletes on the national team and winning medals.

Travel / Food

Two Chinese retirees win hearts on epic American road trip (August 17, 2016, The Washington Post)
They were frustrated by U.S. infrastructure, intrigued by American families, and touched, again and again, by the kindness of people they met. Upon their return — to their surprise — they were greeted as heroes, profiled in state media and lauded online.

Watch Two Crazy Vloggers Drive 5,000km Across Southern China on Handmade Motorcycles (August 20, 2016, The Beijinger)
Winston Sterzel, and Matthew Tye have done what most of us only dream of doing – traversing 5,000km across southern China on ramshackle, handmade motorcycles, stopping to sample the most unique local dishes, filming every moment of their adventure.

Japan Has a Word to Describe the Effects of Chinese Tourists’ ‘Explosive Shopping’ (August 21, 2016 Skift)
The spending power of Chinese tourists in Japan is so impressive there’s a special word for it: bakugai, or explosive buying.

World’s longest glass-bottomed bridge opens in China – video (August 22, 2016, The Guardian)
Visitors flock to cross the longest glass-bottomed bridge in the world after it opens in Zhangjiajie park in Hunan province, China on Saturday. The bridge is 430 metres long (1,400ft) and is suspended 300 metres above the ground between two peaks in the Zhangjiajie park.

Language / Language Learning

The politics of language on the Tibetan plateau (August 18, 2016, The Little Red Podcast)
In this episode, Graeme and Louisa talk with anthropologist Gerald Roche about the prospects for the survival of non-Tibetan languages in the Tibetan areas of the PRC.

Learning to read handwritten Chinese (August 23, 2016, Hacking Chinese)
Then someone sends you a handwritten note in Chinese and suddenly you don’t feel so great any more. It could be a post card, a shopping list or some comments on your latest writing assignment. The point is that you can’t read it, even though you know that you would have been fine if the message had been printed. Welcome to handwritten Chinese!

Books

My Heart is a Wound (August 22, 2016, Velvet Ashes)
I have a proposal. City of Tranquil Light: A Novel by Bo Caldwell needs to become mandatory reading for anyone in our line of work. But more than that, it should be read three times.

Image credit: Tofu, by Language Teaching, via Flickr