Curated briefings, guides, reviews, and tools for learning, ministry, and prayer.
Two of our favorite stories this week are about those on the margins of Chinese societythe poor who struggle to care for sick babies, and the disabled who are shut out of the educational system. The third article is an interesting look at how a the propaganda office in a neighborhood in Qingdao is trying to tackle the problem of "evil cults."
Geographic and cultural divides and differences understanding them and bridging them were common themes this week.
If there were a theme to the three articles that we have chosen this week, it would be information.
I'm a documentary lover; given a choice between watching a movie, a TV program (drama or comedy), or a documentary, I will almost always choose the documentary.
As far as most of our readers go, probably the biggest story out of China this week was the demolition of the Sanjiang Church in Wenzhou.
Schools, nostalgia, and explaining the unexplainable these are the subjects of our top picks in ZGBriefs this week.
Love her or hate her, Empress Dowager Cixi does not leave us with the option of just letting her drift off into historical obscurity. Jung Chang's (author of Wild Swans) recently published Express Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China is destined to become a must read for China hands.
Tomorrow (April 5) is "Tomb-Sweeping Day," a festival to honor the ancestors by tending their graves. There were two articles about this that caught our attention this week.
Adding to my recent list of Ten Books on Christianity, I'd like to also commend the three volumes of Salt and Light: Lives of Faith that Shaped Modern China, by Carol Lee Hamrin and Stacey Bieler.
A house church in Beijing has a special time of prayer for Kazakhstan.
Two articles about religion, a missing jetliner, and eye-popping gifs of China's urbanization; these are our top picks this week.
Scrolling down through ZGBriefs this week provides another glimpse of the complexity of China today.