A Generation of One
Why China's most privileged youth generation ever is still looking for more.
Why China's most privileged youth generation ever is still looking for more.
Geographic and cultural divides and differences understanding them and bridging them were common themes this week.
This is a picture of the skyline of Pudong, the glitzy business district of Shanghai. For a time, that tall building with the hole in the top was actually the world's tallest building. It was soon beat out by the Burj in Dubai, and, as you can see, by the new building going up right beside it.
Statistics released by Beijing think tank in January reveal that emigration from China is at its highest level ever, with 9.34 million leaving the Mainland in 2013. China is the world's fourth largest country for emigration, coming behind, India, Mexico, and Russia.
If there were a theme to the three articles that we have chosen this week, it would be information.
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.
In his work report at last month's annual meeting of the National People's Congress, Premier Li Keqiang, citing the growing toll which China's environmental crisis is taking on the economy, pledged to "declare war" on pollution.
China today has been variously described as an emerging superpower, an economic miracle, a totalitarian regime, a corrupt kleptocracy, a regional hegemon, a bellwether of the future, and a victim of its past. Each of these narratives contains a kernel of truth, yet none by itself begins to do justice to the complexities of China.
Our favorite stories this week cover the gamut searching for Hui identity in Taiwan; the life of "Taobao Girls" in Beijing; the June 4 crack-down in Chengdu; and a trailer for an upcoming documentary about a Tibetan woman living in Beijing. China is nothing, if not complex!
Schools, nostalgia, and explaining the unexplainable these are the subjects of our top picks in ZGBriefs this week.
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.
This is my third blog reflecting back on six days I spent in China recently with Brent Fulton where we met with pastors, seminary leaders and academics in Shanghai and Beijing. I shared in the first blog about my amazement at the growth of the church and the window that seems to be opening for the gospel, and in my second I raised concerns about the environmental disaster that is overtaking China and the key role of the church in calling people to care for God's creation.