Featured Article
Leave China, Study in America, Find Jesus (February 11, 2016, Foreign Policy)
One day in early September, as frigid weather moved into Madison, a group of students approached Cai in her dormitory hallway to ask her opinion about God. She realized that she had never thought about it before. Out of simple curiosity, she began to attend a Bible study group. And so her spiritual journey began; four years after coming to Wisconsin, Cai was baptized and then tied the knot with an American in a Madison church
Joann Pittman
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February 18, 2016
Featured Article
China Says Its Students, Even Those Abroad, Need More ‘Patriotic Education’ (February 10, 2016, The New York Times)
Chinese students, already immersed in classes and textbooks that promote nationalist loyalty to the Communist Party as a bedrock value, must be made even more patriotic and devoted to the party, even when they are studying in universities abroad, according to a new directive sent to education officials.
Joann Pittman
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February 11, 2016
Featured Article
Light government touch lets China’s Hui practice Islam in the open (February 1, 2016, The New York Times)
Throughout Ningxia and the adjacent Gansu Province, new filigreed mosques soar over even the smallest villages, adolescent boys and girls spend their days studying the Quran at religious schools, and muezzin summon the faithful via loudspeakers — a marked contrast to mosques in Xinjiang, where the local authorities often forbid amplified calls to prayer.
Joann Pittman
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February 4, 2016
Featured Article
China’s Search for the Secrets of Jewish Success (January 25, 2016, Tablet)
In their quest to understand Jews better, popular Chinese authors and bloggers offer up facts and myths about everything from the Talmud to anti-Semitism.
Joann Pittman
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January 28, 2016
Featured Article
Video: His Factory Job Gone, a Chinese Migrant Worker Returns Home (January 19, 2016, The New York Times)
Liu Lang, a Chinese migrant worker, left his rural hometown in Sichuan Province two decades ago to work in the factories of the southern province of Guangdong, China’s manufacturing powerhouse. Now, he is moving back. “I worked my way up from a basic worker to a department head. And my career basically ended today,” Mr. Liu said on the train leaving Guangdong.
Joann Pittman
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January 21, 2016
Featured Article
What Is Disappearing from Hong Kong (January 7, 2016, China File)
The recent disappearance of publisher Lee Po—allegedly kidnapped from Hong Kong and rendered to Mainland China—has prompted widespread alarm about the state of Hong Kong’s autonomy, both within the city and internationally.
Joann Pittman
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January 14, 2016
Featured Article
Video: Drinking the Northwest Wind (December 30, 2016, China File)
Lovell and Wang’s focus is on the direct human costs of the transfer—who has won, and who has lost. On the winning end are residents of Beijing’s ever-sprawling suburbs, hoping for reliable showers and clean water to cook with. On the short end of the stick are the people who live in the areas giving up their water, who, without choosing to have had to leave their homes, find new work, leave behind the comforts of community and family, and fathom how their lives fit into the grand and ambitious plans their leaders have devised to solve a nation’s problems.
Joann Pittman
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January 7, 2016
Featured Article
A Chinese Company in India, Stumbling Over a Culture (December 30, 2015, The New York Times)
Chinese companies have embarked on ambitious overseas expansion efforts, snapping up land in dozens of countries to build factories, industrial parks, power plants and other operations. While the investments provide critical support for many economies, Chinese businesses are struggling to navigate complex cultural, political and competitive dynamics.
Joann Pittman
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December 31, 2015
Featured Article
China’s Reckoning: The Economic Miracle Hits Troubled Times (December 22, 2015, Wall Street Journal)
China's Communist Party promised to transform people's lives after decades of chaos. Higher living standards underpin the party’s rule, making limits on personal freedoms worthwhile for many. As the economy slows, that social compact is fraying.
Joann Pittman
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December 24, 2015
Featured Article
China to ease restrictions on living in cities for millions (December 12, 2015, The Guardian)
Beijing announces loosening of ‘hukou’ system governing access to public services, making it easier for workers from countryside to move to urban areas.
Joann Pittman
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December 17, 2015
In Xinjiang, a Battle Over Bread (December 2015, Ethno Traveler)
When is bread no longer just any old bread? The answer of course, at least in Xinjiang, is when it’s Uyghur Nan. Like many loaves in other cultures, Nan is made with flour, yeast, and water and baked in an oven, but that’s where the similarities end. Nan might look and taste like bread, but for the Uyghurs of far western China, a Muslim minority group at odds with Han Chinese culture, it is a source of ethnic pride — a tasty yet sacred way of asserting independence.
Joann Pittman
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December 10, 2015
Featured Article
Amid Smog Wave, an Artist Molds a Potent Symbol of Beijing’s Pollution (December 1, 2015, The New York Times)
For 100 days, Brother Nut dragged a roaring, industrial-strength vacuum cleaner around the Chinese capital’s landmarks, sucking up dust from the atmosphere. He has mixed the accumulated gray gunk with red clay to create a small but potent symbol of the city’s air problems.
Joann Pittman
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December 3, 2015