Coming to you on this last day of August, I hope you had a good summer. I enjoyed the season, although it was complicated by health issues that kept me in Holland. But for some issues, such as those related to Chinese civil society and activism, Western Europe is actually a good reporting location these days, as the Netherlands and Germany have become diaspora hubs for a generation of migrants that researcher Tu Siqi calls ‘quasi-exiles’, those whose decision to move was primarily shaped by political disillusionment and existential precarity – although for those involved in activism direct persecution often also played a role.

I was reminded of Tu’s analysis of this group’s in-betweenness during my reporting on LGBT activism (see below), as there also remains more mobility to and two-way exchange with the mainland in that space than I expected.

The link selection skips a lot of cultural 热点 (I haven’t been as online) but is somehow still pretty long. Thanks for reading!

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

Pride

In early May, an audio editor at my newspaper asked for story ideas on the global LGBT movement, to be aired as a podcast during the WorldPride that took place in Amsterdam this summer. I pitched an episode on the well-known Chinese queer activist Peng Yanhui, better known as Yanzi, who has been based in The Netherlands since 2022.

The story of Yanzi (43), who founded a LGBT rights advocacy organization in China in the 2010s but ended up leaving China during the pandemic following an intensifying crackdown on LGBT activism, seemed to illustrate bigger trends in the life and death of Chinese civil society, and it was great to finally have the opportunity to interview him in The Hague, his current base.

Yanzi is best-known for a 2014 court case, in which he successfully sued a Chongqing clinic offering conversation therapy for his own traumatic experience undergoing their ‘treatment’. In the verdict, the Beijing judge noted that “homosexuality is not a mental illness” and requires no treatment – the first time this had been explicitly stated in a Chinese legal context. In the wake of the case, Yanzi received lots of media attention, including an appearance on CCTV2 program 经济与法, which dedicated a 30-minute episode to the issue, telling the public to be on their guard for sketchy clinics and “unscientific” treatments. (The segment is still accessible online and is worth a watch.)

Over ten years later, the queer movement is “much less visible again”, as Yanzi put it. Many of the NGOs have closed down, there is much less space to report on LGBT issues and virtually none to hold public events. I also spoke to Charlene Liu, one of the founders of the popular Shanghai Pride, which took place for eleven years but shut down after harrassment and visa problems for foreign volunteers increased during the pandemic. After seventeen years in China, the Malaysian-Chinese Liu was forced to leave the country in 2022.

In that context, it could come as a surprise that, also in May and coincidentally a few weekes after my pitch, a representative of the Supreme Court cited Yanzi’s court case from a decade ago as an example of the “clear stance” the Chinese legal system aims to take to safeguard the rights of sexual minorities in China. Despite its informal status, the statement in a written response to an online query encouraged many (see here for the full text), even as its subsequent removal from the internet illustrated the larger restrictive context. “先让你看到希望，再让你明白希望本身就是违规内容”, as an online user cited by 端 put it.

When I talked to Yanzi about how it felt for him to have his case invoked by the Supreme Court, he said that the community should celebrate this moment, which is not an isolated case of a student reaching out to China’s highest court but part of a legal advocacy movement that continues to be very active, even as it is less publicly visible. Due to their efforts, the rights of same-sex partners have been increasingly recognized in court (see the 端 article for some figures), and anti-discrimination cases such as this recent one, in which a Guangxi judge ruled that a trans employee who took medical leave to pursue a gender-affirming operation in Thailand should not have been dismissed from their job, also continue to be brought to Chinese courts.

Writing about a topic like this, it can feel impossible to strike a ‘right’ balance between explaining the depressing reality of diminishing freedoms and highlighting the impressive work that is still happening. During the WorldPride I attended a great event with two visiting artists from China, both of whom had transitioned from doing LGBT-related ngo work to using photography as a way to continue their advocacy. One of them said that he wanted to show through his pictures how queer people in China are not just “living a bad life,” as he felt some foreign reports presented it, but also noted that desperate screams from those working under impossible circumstances should not be interpreted as “singing”. It really is both.

The live events I attended this summer all had speakers from China. One such participant explained how, in addition to the political pressure, the economic downturn also forms a challenge for queer advocacy work, something I had not considered. When people are focused on economic survival, there is less time left for volunteering and less mental space available to make the decision to come out and to “做真实的自己”.

Throughout, I was struck by the longer view activists like Yanzi take. The way in which activists combine long-term goals with short-term action can paradoxically result in more optimism than you will hear from most journalists or analysts. He wanted to talk about things he felt positive about, be it liberal voices in the judiciary or the impact of social media and diversifying public opinion. “The negative side is always present,” he said, “but we also want to utilize and highlight those other sides.”

I felt lucky to speak to him just after he had received a reminder of how his previous activism indeed continues to contribute to that progress. See here for the interview and here for the podcast.

点赞 // Dianzan // Likes

Recommendations in and out of the news cycle

While not many journalists have made it to the glacier collapse disaster site in Tibet, reporters from Phoenix Weekly’s non-fiction account 冷杉Record managed to talk to a lot of people in the Gyirong border area. Also, this 三联 report interviewing well-informed scientists.

A couple of new book conversations I liked: 1) Hong Kong journalist Vivian Tam on writing a book about her family’s taboo around her brother’s mental illness, 2) editor 师永刚 on seeking cancer treatment abroad and writing two books about it, 3) anthropologist 钟淑 on her book 中国菜市场, 4) writer Li Zixin in text and audio on the well-received book that he wrote about his home region of Chaozhou, with the beautiful title 出潮入海.

The story of Wuhan activist and retiree 张毅, who was detained in Tibet on the first day of the implementation of the new ethnic law, as told by his son. “人家都是父亲去派出所领儿子，我是儿子去派出所领父亲.”

“悬置的户籍，困住农村离婚女性.” So complicated.

A recent article from tech media 36Kr about data centers competing for water with local sheep in Ulanqab (“在乌兰察布，89个数据中心跟羊抢水喝”) was shared a lot before it was deleted. I couldn’t find a mirror but this write-up from 联合早报 gets into the topic: “没有公开抗议，并不代表没有矛盾”.

These two essays on non-fiction platform 三明治 are lovely examples of diaspora writing that happen to be set in Holland: podcast host 若含 on the Dutch housing crisis (“这里的租房市场有时让我联想到上海相亲角”) and a local bookstore that made her feel at home, and former English teacher 阿牧 on talking, walking, and inner screams for better food in the student city of Groningen.

Cora Lingling Xu’s work on time as a resource we can inherit – or not – and how this “time inequality” plays out in the Chinese educational system is just really good, as is this FT中文 interview getting into it: “继承得来的时间，还包括允许犯错、探索、和因为提前了解的信息而节省下来的时间. 时间和金钱都是资源，但与金钱不同的是，时间是不可逆的，一旦花出去，就无法收回。这使得时间在不平等再生产中显得格外残酷，却又常常被忽视.” (Also this podcast episode.)

Thoughtful essay about being from a Beijing suburb, while not identifying as a Beijinger: “从地理位置和户口上，我也是毫无争议的“北京人”。但除此之外，我的一切成长经验又都与“北京”无关.”

ICYMI: this well-reported feature on Chinese women advancing their career in Mexico, also an interesting illustration of going abroad as a way to ‘save time’ and access opportunities faster than might have happened in China.

An interview with 东北 historian Song Nianshen: “如果我们跳出中国视野，把东北的衰落放在全球去工业化挑战的语境下，就可以看到，东北老工业基地的衰落，和美国五大湖区（所谓铁锈带）的衰落是同时的，和俄罗斯远东地区、日本北海道的人口外流也是共时的.”

News around 兰州拉面 noodle joints rebranding as 青海拉面, reflecting where many of the migrants running these restaurants are actually from, is leading to some interesting noodle industry coverage.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)

Greetings from Rotterdam. Since the last edition, I wrote about the 60th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution in May, and a lot about China-Europe trade tensions and the like.

Today a story I wrote a while back about Hong Kong media was published, which with recent arrests and more media closures unfortunately turns out to be timely. I discuss some of my Hong Kong reporting experiences below. It is not the most uplifting edition, but I hope you get something out of it. Thanks for reading!

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

大陆化

I was already planning to mention here how much I liked my visit to Hunter bookstore in Hong Kong this past April, which came shortly after its neighbor bookstore Book Punch was raided. And now Hunter has met the same fate. I was only a visitor passing through, but even a short visit to the Sham Shui Po store made clear that bookstore owner Leticia Wong, who together with her partner was arrested last week on Wednesday and released on bail two days later, had created a very special place.

From the display about the Tai Po area, which was struck by the fire disaster last Fall, to shelves on Hong Kong history and social movements, but also on mainland Chinese politics and society, Hunter’s book selection was excellent and thoughtful – and in the current political environment incredibly brave. When I visited I found the vibe peaceful, with Wong herself a kind presence at the cash register.

Wong, who won a district council seat in the 2019 local election but like many resigned in 2021 following the new political vetting requirements, opened the bookstore in 2022. In a Facebook post from 2024, she wrote that people on a sinking ship continue to have options, and that she wanted to keep “building”. I recommend this WOMEN我们 story for more on her views. It also mentions Wong’s experience in mainland China, and her desire to go beyond “成見, 情緒, 私怨”.

I was in Hong Kong to report a story on the media landscape (see here for the feature). I knew it would be about the plummeting press freedoms, often described as a rapid “大陆化” or “mainlandization” of Hong Kong’s media. But it was different to hear directly from journalists and scholars about how things have been changing, or even just to see the plainclothes security personnel standing around the press area outside the court hearings of the independent commission investigating the Tai Po fire.

How the local press has covered the aftermath of the fire turned out to be an example of broader trends. One journalist told me that, while local media have generally been doing a good job covering the ‘human story’ of the victims and their struggles, the early investigation into the corrupt construction sector quickly dried up, and it had been difficult to find anyone willing to discuss the government response, such as the decision to not rebuild the estate, even though many of the residents would like that.

This reflects a broader downturn of investigative reporting in the city. As Hong Kong Baptist University journalism professor Rose Luqiu Luwei explained, Hong Kong media increasingly stick to “just the facts”. The fear and confusion brought on by the speed of change and uncertainty around enforcement can make it even harder to assess risks than in China. “In China people have more experience with censorship. In Hong Kong it is brand new. They don’t know what the line is.”

Having followed the scene since the 1990s, when she moved from Shanghai to work at Phoenix TV, Luwei saw the growing Chinese influence in Hong Kong media first-hand (“even since before the hand-over”). But, like in other parts of Hong Kong life, the 2020 national security law has greatly accelerated that process, with the liberal side of the previously polarized media spectrum all but disappearing and national security authorities wielding increasingly direct influence over managerial appointments and editorial affairs in mainstream media.

There are some bright spots in the landscape. I visited Lantau Connects, one of a wave of community papers that were opened since 2020, an example of what an interesting CUHK study describes as a trend of hyperlocal citizen journalism. Founder Siu Yin Fung wants to connect a new generation to their local history, resulting in some beautiful copy. Since the fire, I have also been following some of the newer online outlets, such as 法庭線 and 集誌社, more closely. Compared to the outlets their founders previously worked at they are more marginal, but they seem to do important, outspoken work (see for instance this recent interview with journalist Ronson Chan).

In several conversations, China also came up as a place to learn from. While many are leaving Hong Kong media for other careers (yet another mainland parallel), some who stay also express solidarity with their mainland colleagues. “It has never been a friendly climate for journalists there. But people kept doing their jobs,” as one person put it.

Reading Leticia Wong’s post about the sinking ship, I was reminded of something the Chinese feature writer Li Haipeng told me in Beijing about ten years ago, also referencing a sinking ship. On the sinking ship of Chinese media, the journalists who were still holding on to the mast were transitioning from investigative and other types of journalism to the ‘softer’ non-fiction writing I was interviewing him about. “船已经沉得，已经看不见那个船，只有桅杆还立在上面,” he said.

At that time, it was still hard to imagine Hong Kong media as part of that development, let alone think of it as a place where journalists and others receive extremely heavy jail sentences. The recent experience of Chinese media and public life shows that some ships do indeed go down, and that there are people who keep building new vehicles for journalism, storytelling and community against the odds. The costs individuals like Wong can pay for their resilience are the darkest part of that story.

点赞 // Dianzan // Likes

Recommendations in and out of the news cycle

That the NYT’s Vivian Wang had her journalist visa canceled is really sad news. She focused on the societal reporting that, as a well-read MANG MANG feature on disappointing work experiences in foreign media put it, has in recent years been squeezed by “地缘政治、经贸往来与军事博弈的宏大叙事”. While I couldn’t agree more, and the story does a good job laying out problems facing societal reporting on the ground in China as well as in foreign editorial rooms, reports on the state of the foreign press tend to focus on US (and UK) media. These influential Anglophone media have faced a sharp drop in capacity since the visa conflict that started under Trump 1, with the NYT going from 12 foreign positions to I believe now just one. But for European media that is not the case, and I’d be interested in a round-up that includes East-Asian, continental European and other 外媒 trajectories in China. See here for a nice video of some of Wang’s work.

In Hong Kong I also had the pleasure of visiting and participating in a group discussion in 过滤气泡, a public space in Jordan founded by communication scholar Fang Kecheng that has organized over 140 events in its first year of operation and aims to encourage more offline life (“手机失联，生活上线”). I recommend visiting if you’re in HK. (See here for a great write-up of one recent event with authors Zou Sicong and Zhang Xiaoman.)

On the drug rape cases involving Chinese diaspora members, I learnt a lot from this 不合时宜 episode, which included a discussion of what it meant for the German court to be filled with Chinese women who were there to “表达共同的愤怒” and this interview with a victim by investigative journalist Zhaoyin Feng. This Caixin story reports some information on similar crime in China.

On 谷雨, a devastating read on a young person’s medical nightmare ending in complex disability, written by themselves as a graduation project. Maybe that does not sell it, but it is worth a read. Out of many, Shenzhen University is the only institution looking ok in this.

An interesting reflection by Peking University law researcher Zhao Hong, on his support for a new law that strengthens privacy by making it harder for employers and other entities to access information on administrative offences – and the public backlash he faced over that support.

This May saw several very deadly industrial accidents in China, first in a Liuyang fireworks factory (37 victims), and then in a Shanxi coal mine (82 victims). These stories by 青年志 and 正面链接 go deep into what the industry in Liuyang is like, also amid the current crackdown, and this Phoenix story lays out the situation in Shanxi. As one worker describes the systematic misreporting in the sector, “除了工人挖煤是真的，其他都是假的”.

A short piece on the big change in the culture around buying real estate, as the author sells off their 小县城 home. “一个叙事的破灭，即使是当时觉得坚不可摧的叙事，破灭来的还是那么快，彻底.”

The sympathetic stories of Yu Shun and Zhenzhen, a couple running a video channel on rural life that is less “李子柒式” countryside aesthetics and more journalistic realism. As Zhenzhen articulates their mission: “我们看到的全是问题。他们现在的生活相比之前肯定是好很多的…但还需要更好一些. ”Also this (more aestheticized) feature on living in a village outside Shanghai, in the “深乡下”.

Journalist Liu Min on the Chinese presence she encountered during a recent trip she made to Indonesia. I also keep hearing of people traveling to Indonesia for work, research or travel in the past two years. “不仅仅是大型国企、央企，也包含互联网大厂，和海量的大中小型私企、个体户。这一点在印尼生活的方方面面都可以感受到.”

I would have loved to see this exhibition on Chinese quilts in Boston. There is also a book.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)

Happy Spring from Beijing, which has not disappointed in delivering lots of lovely weather. As the Indian writer Pallavi Aiyar has pointed out, it seems like Beijing has more flowering trees than it used to, reminding her of Tokyo’s sakura season.

Since the previous edition, there has been a lot of news to cover. Apart from global events, for me that also includes a growing amount of China tech news, whether it is at the Beijing Auto Show this week, or at last week’s Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon, where people and robots ran side by side and I participated in making some robot propaganda.

The race was won by a very fast robot, with the progress the machines have made since the first edition of the event last year being the real news. I was personally more interested in the motley of “我们的机器人朋友,” as the event host called them, that followed the leading cohort. These robots more visibly bore the marks of the team behind them, wearing fun outfits and accessories, from colorful hats to Feiyue shoes. The individual gaits, with #50 grinding its shoes into the pavement and #66 just seeming a bit drunk, might have been the thing that made them most like the human runners.

While we need good China tech reporting (I’m not sure this qualified), I think it is important not to lose sight of everything else happening in the country. Such as the public debate erupting around the 两会 about rural pensions, a topic that has kept coming up in conversations and media coverage since (see for instance this new documentary), as just one example of the gaping urban-rural welfare gap.

I also got to travel to the South, where I visited the Guangdong peninsula of Leizhou for a story on migratory birds (see below), just about as far outside the news cycle as you can go. I also went to Hong Kong for the first time in three years – more on that next time.

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

Bird research

I wrote a 3000-word feature on a new Chinese-Dutch study on migratory birds for the science section of the Dutch newspaper I work for that is by far the longest thing I have written since returning to China as a correspondent two years ago. At first, I was surprised that the editor wanted to devote so much space to the topic, even wondering how I would fill it. However, by the end of my reporting I was in full agreement that this was fascinating stuff. I also realized just how many fans these birds have, be it in Holland or China. A colleague at another Dutch outlet said she never got as many reader comments as when she wrote about migratory birds outside Beijing.

I went to the tidal mudflats of Leizhou, the peninsula in Guangdong that is the southernmost bit of the Chinese mainland, to observe the energetic researcher Peng Hebo (37) and his team, as they were making their annual trek from Fangchenggang to Tangshan to monitor the food sources of migratory birds that fuel along China’s coast on their way to their breeding grounds in the north. These coastal areas are crucial for millions of migratory birds along the endangered global flyway from Australia and New-Zealand to the Arctic.

It is a Herculean effort, that Peng has undertaken for over ten years at this point, and that his Dutch mentor Theunis Piersma, a well-known global flyway scholar, describes as if one research team “tries to monitor what is happening in the coastal wetlands from West Africa to Southern Norway”. The team, which includes Peng’s students but also birders and former construction workers, planned 64 consecutive days of monitoring and sampling along 40 sites. They also tried to have some fun outside work in the coastal towns. (“We have our usual spots. Like the birds.”)

Peng discovered that the intensive use by the Chinese public of the now officially largely protected mudflats, which provide a rich source of shellfish and other seafood, was leading to food shortages for the birds. By comparison, commercial shellfish farming led to more biodiversity and food for the birds, as farmers only harvest the shellfish once a year and keep people off their property the rest of the time.

It was a surprising finding, as commercial actors are usually seen as having a negative impact on conservation efforts. But as Piersma explained to me, it’s a conservation management challenge that also highlights previous successes. When he first started working with Chinese colleagues over twenty years ago, he thought he would “witness the end of the world”, as China was speeding up land reclamation along its coast, moving industry from Beijing to the key area for bird conservation of Bohai at an unprecedented scale before the 2008 Olympics.

When researchers were able to prove that this land reclamation was detrimental to the global flyway, Chinese policymakers listened and started to ban further land reclamation. Since 2018, much of the remaining coastal mudflats have been turned into nature reserves, averting the worst-case scenario and stabilizing the decline of the bird populations.

The current ‘tragedy of the commons’, the next problem to tackle, was on clear display in the areas I visited, with the public mudflats completely plowed over after local residents and tourists enjoying their 赶海 outings finished their digging for the day.

The feature itself is better than this summary (with really great pictures by photographer Yin Ying), but I was excited to share something here too, and to add a few China observations that I could not include.

First, I just love these stories of intensive cross-border research collaboration with a long history, such as that between Piersma, Peng and other Chinese bird researchers. It’s unfortunate how little these stories are told, despite having developed in just about every academic subfield over the last decades. In this case, there had also been an interesting transition in the relationship, with Dutch bird conservation NGOs funding research for almost two decades before Chinese funders took over in recent years. Piersma described the Chinese chapter of his effort to compare the state of bird migration flyways worldwide as “a big tree,” that to his surprise had grown stronger than collaborations elsewhere, like Australia. The impact their research had on Chinese policymaking was a career highlight for him. Peng in turn had been deeply shaped by his time in Holland, while clearly taking the joint research to new heights.

Second, joining Peng and his team for a couple of days gave me some insight into the complex politics of nature conservation. Even as much of these coastal areas and the wildlife on them are now protected, most of the actual land still belongs to local villages, as buying it all would be extraorbitantly expensive for higher-level authorities. So villages retain the final say on whether tourists are allowed on the beach or whether locals can dig for worms and seafood to supplement their livelihoods. This makes better conservation along over 18,000 (!) kilometers of coastline a deeply social issue that is also about local employment and, once again, rural pensions (most of the people digging for seafood to sell were elderly). In fact, the first time that Peng realized that aquaculture might be helping the endangered birds was when Leizhou altogether banned commercial shellfish farming for several years, in the context of a 打黑 crackdown on the gangs controlling them.

Finally, despite being from a country on the Wadden Sea, I had actually never spent any serious time on a tidal mudflat, and I warmly recommend it if there are any around you, in China or elsewhere. They really are a lovely world of shallow puddles, moving creatures, and new – but intuitive - vocabulary, such as the distinction between 留鸟 and 候鸟. Which are you?

点赞 // Dianzan // Likes

Recommendations in and out of the news cycle

A well-reported, heartbreaking feature from WOMEN我们 on Rahile Dawut and the hundreds of other scholars of Uyghur culture – and their graduate students – who were arrested in 2017-2018, many of whom remain in prison today. Also this recent podcast with Xinjiang researchers Rian Thum and Darren Byler.

Reflecting the significant and diverse Chinese communities in Iran and the Gulf, Chinese media published quite a lot about them in March, from those fleeing Iran to those staying, and from the Chinese sailors stuck in the Strait of Hormuz (“大家都在苦中作乐：月色下的霍尔木兹海峡，一些船员在夜间钓鱼为乐”) , and the Chinese tourists stuck on a cruise ship in Dubai, to the long-term Chinese residents of Dubai, for whom its “安全” is apparently a top draw. And just today, this long-read by 南方周末 on sailors that have now been stuck for months, in some cases facing water and food scarcity, and stand-offs with the shipping companies that want them to cross the Strait: “面对公司让船舶驶过霍尔木兹海峡的指令，全船人达成了一致的拒绝态度，并且延续至今。“给我钱，我也不会过的。”曹翔有时候很生气，“为什么要去试？拿命试.”

On the recent “项飙潮”, I think the lecture Xiang gave at Zhejiang University, in which he discusses a need to “抓住” certainties to live by as many are falling away, is a good example of why I keep hearing people say he is a rare voice addressing urgent social issues that many Chinese social scientists for various reasons avoid. In an interview, Xiang shared about how his popularity has given him new purpose at an impasse in his career, but that he continues to worry, now about how to use this “luck” well.

A nice essay on climber and anthropologist Sun Xu, who is studying the growing climbing communities in places like Yangshuo, Baihe and Liming and their interactions with local residents. “攀岩不是一个人的事.”

I liked this episode of the 不明白 podcast with stand-up comedian 池子, who clearly is an independent thinker.

A new book (free to download) by China migration scholar Elena Barabantseva based on her long-term research on women from Post-Soviet states who married Chinese men. The chapters on how the women handle immigration issues, both for themselves and for their children, within China’s rigid immigration system are especially interesting. And another free book (so many good open-access volumes these days) with autobiographical accounts of thirteen sociologists of Chinese descent working on migration and diaspora.

Great points in this essay by disability researcher Mengzhu An on 1) high expectations Chinese interviewees can have of academic research in bringing about policy change and the dilemmas that creates, and 2) a shift towards more research on disability rights and welfare, as labor and gender studies are increasingly off-limits. I have indeed noticed disability issues getting more (long overdue) attention recently. See also this new resource on how to engage in public advocacy in China written by communication researcher Fang Kecheng.

On non-fiction platform 三明治, a moving chapter from the frontlines of 基层民政救助工作.

A good piece of data journalism from 晚点LatePost that breaks down production costs in nine sectors. A meal in one Japanese restaurant is 30% cheaper than in 2019, even as food, labor and production costs all rose – 卷 in action.

“北京10年.” Attractive graphics summing up 10 years of change and continuity in the capital, from the Pangu building (different), the elderly population (larger), PM2.5 count (lower) and local newspapers (fewer) to my Liangmahe neighborhood (transformed).

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)

Happy new year! Always grateful for a second start to the year, I welcomed the Year of the Horse on a reporting trip to Hainan, together with many others who had flown in from the north. The trend of people going on holiday, rather than reuniting with relatives back home during the festival, was fun to write about (although I discovered that holidaymakers don’t love being disturbed for an interview while lounging on the beach, which seems fair enough). There was a lot of mostly positive attention this year for all the new ways to celebrate the new year and the societal changes they reflect.

Also, a welcome to those who found Suipian after reading my recent essay in China Books Review on independent bookstores and a rise in small-scale offline community in Chengdu that can be traced back to China’s zero-Covid era. I enjoyed following up on this topic, after first reporting on it in 2024. I was also glad to learn there are several researchers working on proper studies of the ongoing iterations of China’s great independent bookstore culture.

I don’t know about you, but I struggle to keep up with what I want to read, including when it comes to the exploding number of often excellent newsletters. In that context I am all the more grateful for your readership!

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

1. Getting by

A friend in Beijing who is a manager in a mid-sized company recently told me they had received over 100,000 applications for about 100 job openings. The amount had surprised him but also confirmed what everyone seems to know: youth unemployment is bad in a way that the official rate does not capture.

It’s clearly hard to “get ahead” right now, and this seems especially true for young people just getting started. In a new book on young people and their parents, journalists Yang Ying and Yi Xianfeng conclude that the young people they interviewed generally believe that “自己很难再复制父辈的路径：努力不再必然通向上升。海量机会都被父辈们拿走了，轮到他们几乎一无所有”.

Paradoxically, the pessimism also seems to free up some space for young people to choose their own path. In the course of reporting several stories, I kept coming across young graduates, from varying economic backgrounds, who are trying out things – at least for a while – that they think are better than a standard job. Yinuo, a 27-year-old here in Beijing who started her own business planning creative events last year, put it like this: “Now that no one can find a good job, I might as well focus on what I want myself.”

This fits with what Helen Gao describes in her essay for Foreign Policy, namely that, as a single-minded focus on wealth and success stops being an option, what follows “may well be the diversification of pursuits and values that happens organically” as a society evolves, raising new questions for young people like figuring out what they want.

At a wider level, you can also feel this tension between the economic downturn and the many serious problems this poses and a sense that this new phase of development might also be a bit more relaxed (this account describes it as “a collective sigh”). In Hainan, I met a driver who marveled at the fact that he used to make in a day what he now makes in a month, but also said he was doing ok. “It’s fine, really, as long as you are not in debt,” Wu Qizhen, a toy shop owner who had returned to his hometown when the business he had in Shanghai tanked during the pandemic told me.

Of course, we don’t hear enough from those who do have that debt or otherwise get stuck, in some cases even resorting to 走线 to Europe. I hope that in this new year I can learn more about those stories, and in general get out of Beijing more.

2. Many hugs

Continuing the ‘young generation’ theme, I wanted to briefly share a story about youth mental health that I recently finished. Mental health issues among young people are, of course, a global topic. In China, reported rates are not much higher than the global average (of around 14 percent). However, in addition to well-known factors like smartphones, in China factors related to the high-pressure, inflexible education system play a relatively large role. A growing number of kids struggle too long and then drop out or 休学.

A bestseller from last year by non-fiction author Liang Hong focuses on the interaction between teenagers and their parents when these problems arise. “As a parent, you want the best for the child, but the way we love our children can also be part of the problem,” she told me in an interview. I recommend Liang’s book, which is deeply reported and follows kids in 鸡娃 places like Haidian but also in county-level towns where parents are more likely to be absent than overinvolved.

The book went mainstream, with a People’s Daily review and an Yixi talk, and has sparked a lot of conversation. Yinuo, who I mentioned earlier, used it as a starting point to talk to her mother about her Haidian education, which took her about ten years and a lot of therapy to process. “I think my mother always doubted my experiences because she thinks our generation doesn’t know what hard work is,” she told me. “But this is an author of her generation, who she already respected. She gave me many hugs after watching the video.” (The full article has not come out yet. I’ll share it here when it is published.)

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Recommendations in and out of the news cycle

A 年夜饭 in a detention center.

This moving essay (in English, or in the original Dutch) by Dutch journalist and veteran China reporter Marije Vlaskamp on her friendship with the jailed Gao Zhen, one of the Gao Brothers artist duo.

A Chinese interview with Japanese sinologist Tomoko Ako about Chinese civil society and the surprising role that Japan (like some European cities) has started to play in it these last years. Her analysis of the transition of a 维权 to a 后白纸 era has parallels with what Vlaskamp notes about the decline in international interest in Chinese human rights issues.

China as Context is an open-access volume edited by three anthropologists who argue that China is “the unnoticed mortar” holding our broken global economic order together, and call on the social sciences to (finally) fill their China knowledge gaps. It is not light on theory, but worth a read, with a Su Shi epigraph that fits our confusing times: “不识庐山真面目，只缘身在此山中”.

While reviewing the Dutch translation of 我在北京送快递, the bestseller by former delivery driver Hu Anyan that is being translated in over ten languages, I was most taken by his observations on what he ironically calls his “proletarian awareness” and what twenty years of 打工 taught him about inequality and about himself. For more societal reflection through a 快递 lens, see these conversations with author 王婉, who also published a memoir on her work as a delivery driver. Both Hu and Wang describe a life of self-education and reading and writing in unlikely circumstances. Wang talks to editor Wu Qi and economist Yao Yang (good on rural issues after a rather 官方 start).

An interview with international relations scholar Chenchen Zhang on the far right in China.

Also with Zhang, this podcast on Chinese discourses on Gaza. And an episode of 不合时宜 on 俄乌战争四周年.

This SCMP article last week on a Chinese push to develop area studies, which is mentioned in the outline for the next 5 year plan attracted a lot of attention. Coming from an area studies background, it’s been a topic that I have been hoping to write on for some time. While I can relate to the self-critical comments from European academics (“the asymmetry with China couldn’t be more stark”), this Chinese trend really has been slow in the making, facing administrative obstacles and underfunding (see for instance this op-ed).

Former Xinhua reporter 谢昊 on essays he wrote next to his news reporting that are now being published with the help of an interesting publishing service provided by non-fiction platform 三明治：“我在黎巴嫩的时候，以色列经常空袭，很多边境的村庄被炸. 这些村庄有阿拉伯语的名字、英语的名字，甚至有法语的名字，但没有中文名。为了报道，我给一个又一个村庄取名，看着它们在中文世界有了自己的坐标”.

A very long, very well-written feature on the tragic story of Xie Ye, who was married to well-known poet Gu Cheng.

Finally, there were a lot of interesting China-related moments and narratives going around this Winter Olympics. My favorite was this teary post-victory embrace between the very likeable 东北 speed-skater Ning Zhongyan and his Dutch coach.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)

I wanted to send this out today to stick to my 两个月一更 schedule, if one can call it that. There was lots of news to cover these past months, all the way from China’s military parade in early September and public opinion on it (“in this economy?”) to the Dutch interference at the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chips company Nexperia, and the Xi-Trump meeting of yesterday.

Given my love of slower journalism, I was glad that I also got to write a feature on Chinese studying abroad trends, travel to Ningbo and Yiwu to explore how the area is adapting to the U.S. tariffs, and learn more about feminism (see below).

But some favorite moments of these months took place at public cultural events. Those are not nearly as abundant as, say, a decade ago, but the ones that do take place can be really great.

To mention one: last weekend at a literary festival in Mentougou, in the mountains just outside Beijing, French author Édouard Louis really connected to his Chinese audience during a dialogue with 单读 editor Wu Qi on the childhood poverty and violence shaping his writing. Louis talked about the challenges politically invisible groups share, both inside France (he mentioned Chinese migrants) and elsewhere, while members of the audience asked Louis for advice on how to tell their own stories of being class migrants in Chinese society.

Like most of the audience, I was seated on cushions on a grass lawn for the afternoon. Next to me were two women who had traveled from Fujian to attend. As the sun sank below the mountains, we got increasingly cold, but we all thought it was worth it.

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

1. Thirty years of feminism

Until recently, all I knew about the 1995 UN Women’s Conference in Beijing was that it was one of the first international summits China hosted, and that Hilary Clinton attended. But working on a story on the 30-year anniversary of the summit, which was officially commemorated a few weeks ago, I learnt so many interesting things. Like the fact that, in terms of its impact on Chinese society, an enormous NGO forum preceding the summit, attended by 31,000 people including over 25,000 foreign attendees from feminist NGOs worldwide, was arguably more important than the summit itself. The forum, which was moved from the Worker’s Stadium to a venue in Huairou by nervous authorities, kickstarted a period of more collaboration between the government and a new wave of women’s rights and gender NGOs, working especially in rural areas. A key achievement of this period of activism is the domestic violence law, which, as feminist Feng Yuan has put it, was “proposed, pushed through, and ultimately passed thanks to the perseverance of women’s NGOs”.

Of course, much has happened since in China’s feminist movement, which might be the most active social movement in China today, despite growing repression in the last decade. I was grateful to talk to three women activists from different generations who helped me understand these trends, from the ‘NGO generation’ to Me Too, the online movement that, as the impressive Zhou Xiaoxuan told me, in China created the foundation for the more widespread gender awareness among young women today, to a more recent diaspora generation of Chinese-speaking feminist groups.

It turned out that some of these groups are actively celebrating the anniversary of the 1995 summit, and keeping its legacy alive. Louis, a Holland-based Chinese woman in her twenties, participated in an online group commemorating it by reading the work of Chinese feminists together. “It is incredibly important to recognize that we have our own feminist genealogy,” she said. “We should not just read Judith Butler and bell hooks, but also our own people, even if for political reasons they are less visible. Like Li Xiaojiang, Lü Pin, or Feng Yuan.”

For more on this, I recommend this 歪脑 interview with Feng Yuan, which notes that we should not “带着玫瑰色滤镜打量过去,” and this excellent Substack by young journalist Wanqing Chen, who also participated in the reading group and discusses the ideas of Chinese feminists like 李小江 and 高小贤, both of whom passed away this year, in more detail in a series of articles. I am very happy to say that Wanqing has recently started working with me part-time and collaborated on this story with me.

2. Friends and foes

About two years ago, I defended my PhD dissertation on China’s immigration policymaking at Leiden University. My thesis recently became available open-access for anyone who might be interested in it. In the conclusion I try to address some broader questions like whether speaking of ‘immigration’ makes sense in the Chinese context. I have always felt a bit caught between media and academia - and would not recommend anyone to embark on a fieldwork project studying the Chinese state right now – but I am grateful I had the chance to research such a globally urgent topic, at a time when Chinese authorities are starting to realize immigration is here to stay.

Recent policy developments fit with the patterns I found in my research. Like the nationalist uproar around the recently announced K-visa for ‘talent’, which was similar to the large online response to somewhat more liberal permanent residency regulations in 2020. People familiar with the Chinese immigration authorities know that this new visa is bound to be implemented in a risk-averse, cautious manner. But without public education or much reliable information about immigration in China available, knowledge levels on the country’s migration policies are low, while state media tend to exaggerate policy impact. In addition to China’s well-known online nationalists, in my research I also identified a moderate majority, many of whom held views on issues like permanent residency for foreign nationals living in China that were more liberal than current policy.

I also recommend this new open-access handbook on migration to China, and to which I have contributed. Its range of topics – from student mobility to expatriate children and refugee migration - and authorship reflects the vibrant transnational research that has emerged on this subject over the last 15 years.

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Recommendations in and out of the news cycle

A good story by 食通社 on farmers in Hebei, Henan and surrounding provinces who, after a very dry summer, had to deal with the heaviest rains since 1961 and who now face a lot of trouble harvesting. See also this Sixth Tone article on the same topic, featuring a farmer called Zhen Rui who before this year had only seen floods on tv, reflecting the fact that these northern areas hardly ever experienced flooding prior to recent changes in climate. Given how many people must be affected by this year’s extreme weather, the topic seems to deserve more attention. (I did notice that “victims of natural disaster” were one of the only societal groups who received a mention in the recent Plenum communique.)

On 水瓶纪元, two impressive stories of daughters helping their fathers investigate complex labor rights violations: in the first article, Xie Jingjing finds the 黑砖厂 at which her father was forced to work for nine years, and in the second, “农村家庭的第一代大学生” Yang Mao secures compensation for her father’s work injury, helped by the recent Supreme Court interpretation of China’s social security law.

A great long-read by journalist Zhang Hanlu featuring 王姐, an impressive woman from Yunnan who is active in a union in Prato, Italy that is trying to bring the 40-hour work week to Chinese-owned textile factories there. Discussing another segment of Italy’s diverse Chinese migrant population, Zhaoyin Feng writes vividly about the Chinese baristas playing “a crucial role in keeping traditional Italian café culture alive” (nice pictures too).

Academic Shiyao talks to journalist Liu Min about the lawsuits she pursues to make companies more accountable. An entertaining listen on how to “测试法律使用的边界.”

Religion scholars Fenggang Yang and Jiayin Hu interviewed 22 Christian human rights lawyers in China, to explore what role their faith plays in their work. They also mention Zhang Zhan, whose faith does not usually feature in media coverage on her tragic case.

“当房子的「面子」开始跌落.” A worrying 人物 feature on Chinese building facades coming down due to age or the use of cheap materials.

Journalist and editor Jiang Yan on twenty years of working in cultural journalism in China. If you need some inspiration, you might also enjoy the 新京报社歌 she cites, which includes lines like: “我的纸里包着我的火/ 我的火种染出你的光/在风中在雨中在火中/在一切故事发生的时刻/在城市在原野在旅途/在任何苦难欢乐的现场.”

In The Diplomat, China sociologist Svetlana Kharchenkova writes about the subtle impact of geopolitics on the publication of books by U.S. authors in recent years. Short but packed with detail about how publishing in China works.

A quantitative analysis of over 100,000 academic publications funded by the China Scholarship Council, the state channel that funds many Chinese PhD-researchers abroad and has become more politically contentious. It finds, among other things, that the proportion of CSC-funded publications related to dual-use research is low (around 0.5%).

And I haven’t been yet, but 北京友谊商店 recently reopened after a renovation. 新京报praises the new look as being subtle for an SOE (“国有企业在城市更新中并非只能扮演“大拆大建”的角色”)，with one of the main draws a parking lot turned park.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)

In its infrequent form, Suipian has existed for over a year now. I am taking this as an opportunity to rethink my rather basic newsletter practices and explore a bit more of what the platform has to offer. So far I have only made a start on a logo but let me know if you have suggestions! It’s a bit long at the top today, so if you prefer the links below you might also scroll right down. Thanks for reading and have a good end of the summer.

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

1. Culinary power

These last years I have been fascinated by - and personally grateful for - the overseas spread of a wider range of China’s immense cuisine. In Holland, restaurants serving the localized Chinese-Indonesian fusion that took off in the postwar era are struggling, but a new generation of eateries, with dishes and 小吃 from Chinese northern and central regions that were previously not represented, is doing really well.

For an article on this trend, which in Holland started around 2018, I talked to four Chinese entrepreneurs, who all described their business as “an experiment” that had not been easy. Chris Zhang (57), who makes Shaanxi noodles in Rotterdam, ended up as the only cook in his restaurant for three years after Covid and migration restrictions left both his noodle chefs stuck in China. Tingjun Zheng, who came to Holland as a teenager and started a business to find more community, had just renovated her “living room-style” 煎饼站 when she was evicted during the lockdowns. They were especially proud of the authenticity of their food, which, as Zhang put it, can be “better than much of what you get in China.” (See here for my story in Dutch, with great photography by Simon Lenskens.)

The same weekend, the BBC published a piece on the growing popularity of authentic regional Chinese cuisines in Singapore, framed as part of a Chinese rise in soft power that might “help soften the image of a country whose ambitions often clash with those of Western powers and neighbours”. It’s an interesting part of the same global trend story, but it also made me realize that China’s image had not come up in my conversations with the migrant-entrepreneurs or the customers I spoke to.

Rather than considering their contribution to Chinese state goals in Europe, the business owners had wondered whether they could make Chinese food for a living without adapting to Dutch taste buds as much as Chinese restaurant owners traditionally had. It’s a story of rising cultural confidence and migrant emancipation that of course has deep roots, but I think focusing on geopolitics here can be misleading. For one, it muddles distinctions that media should actually aim to clarify, such as that between the Chinese state and its ambitions and the really diverse motivations of individuals in its diaspora.

Most of us would agree China is, in fact, a major culinary ‘power’, and that more authentic Chinese food can only help its image. And I would not mind some dumping of overcapacity in this area. But what do we lose when we reduce people’s stories to a one-dimensional geopolitical bent, as often happens with stories related to China? I get it when it’s about drones or metals, but for interpreting trends in Chinese classical music, the rise of PopMart, or the appeal of “a tangy aftertaste achieved through fermented chilli peppers”, I don’t think we need to go there – or at least not only there.

Finally, this great noodle essay takes a deep dive into the historical ties between student Han Xuan’s Shanxi home cuisine and Italian pasta with tomato sauce. Han was inspired by his inability to find Shanxi noodles in Hong Kong, which, while not immune to the above trend, in culinary terms maintains a distinct identity from mainland China: “这里遍布美国、意大利、日本、泰国，甚至印度的餐厅，却很少看到兰州拉面、河南烩面.”

2. 附近

Musings on Beijing are quite a genre right now, as people continue to make it back to the capital after years away. I enjoyed journalist and researcher Lucy Hornby’s essay from July on finding Beijing “much less changed” compared to 2019 than she expected, with the biggest vibe shift she notes a relative lack of energy, both economic and political (less slogans).

I agree that central Beijing has in many ways become the more subdued 后花园 that authorities shaped it to be. So it was a surprise when I returned to Beijing this summer after some months away to find the 亮马河 area close to where I live extremely 热闹. Live-streamers advertising ‘the Chinese Seine’ had attracted big crowds that were swimming, eating and playing by the waterside, with Crocs and flip-flops lying around everywhere and informal vendors doing good business (“水烟送桨板” anybody?). The pleasant chaos of it really felt like a throwback, especially since it took place in public space and not in a mall, and I ended up writing a short article trying to contextualize it.

In general, on a neighborhood level, lots of things keep changing, although often in the ‘closing down’ kind of direction. In the last months local grocers have succumbed to the online giants, and a state-owned restaurant down the road that had been around for decades and felt like time travel, also because of the big Deng Xiaoping portrait in the lobby, is gone.

Local bookstore Kubrick, by the MOMA, is closing today I believe, and, also today, a photographer friend is flying back to Holland after twenty years in Beijing, because of the diminished art scene here. On the upside, the Din Tai Fung across the road that closed last year reopened as a Shandong restaurant with many of the same chefs and a menu that is at least 50% identical to what it was. And this week, politics returns as the city gears up for the 9.3 parade, with red ring-road banners and in this area lots of polo shirt-wearing 河道保安.

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Recommendations in and out of the news cycle

I enjoyed this LARB review by Jane Hayward of two books on the roots of China’s economic reforms in the “long 1970s”, pushing back against a standard periodisation and reminding of “the contingency of history and the opaqueness of the future when viewed from the present”.

Similarly, this article argues that the late 1940s should be studied through the lens of post-war reconstruction rather than as a precursor to the Communist victory, an interesting thought. And see here for CIA maps depicting Mao-era urban development.

An interview about oral history with retired Peking University graduate Guo Li, who completed 600 interviews with elderly fellow alumni in 5 years as part of her research into 北大’s Anti-Rightist movement, saying that “大约50%愿意谈，20～30%简单回复，20%谢绝了采访.” While unable to publish them formally, Guo writes up her findings on Wechat to a sizable audience (see for instance this article about how three couples survived the political upheaval). Anecdotally, there seems to be a lot of interest in conducting “抢救式采访” right now, with journalists participating in a growing memoir-writing industry.

Short documentary about China-based French photographer Anaïs Martane’s new photobook on 2002-2005 Beijjing and the Sanlitun River Bar. (See here for the book.)

I learnt a lot from this 结绳志 reported feature on several women taking the 自考, a test-based way to obtain a degree open to anyone that is much bigger than I realized and attracts many migrant workers with little formal education: “高等教育自学考试（简称自考）是中国高考之外最大的考试，2024年全国共有538.48万人次报考，超过考研和考公，是高考人数的四成.” Also featuring women in the 珠三角 area is this excellent podcast, which tells the life stories of two “做手工皮具的女工”.

A 南方周末 feature on China’s “856万失信者”, who because of their debt are blacklisted and cannot use payment apps and key modes of transportation like high-speed rail, and who urgently need improvements in China’s personal bankruptcy law.

A rare account with details about current Xinjiang 社区管理by a Han filmmaker who decided to rent an apartment in Urumqi. “刚开始我很抵触，在内地人看来，这简直是对个人隐私和公民权利的冒犯，警察也没有权力这么做。但是也只能入乡随俗.”

After HK critic Liang Wendao’s podcast 八分半 recently got deleted from mainland platforms, likely due to a Jimmy Lai mention, he released an audio note saying that, as a “很糟糕的道教徒” , he was taking a broader view of things and calling on his listeners to not waste any emotions on it. Journalist Zhang Feng adopted a similar tone when a public lecture at his Chengdu bookstore was canceled, writing: “这个活动取消了，但是在我心中，它已经举办过了.”

“我在西班牙打黑工.” A vivid account of language student Chen Huang’s experience working part-time in a Chinese-run souvenir shop in Spain. On the new Wechat account 欧洲新客.

Well-known journalist 灵子 writes about going to the UK for graduate studies as a ‘mature student’. Nice essay about age and culture: “我们说的“年龄”，常常混杂着生理年龄、心理年龄和社会年龄.” Also on 天使望故乡，sports writer Wang Qinbo on watching his daughter learn to play football in Italy (in which football is described as ““属于身体的言论自由”).

A short study by cultural studies researcher Laura Vermeeren on contemporary Chinese font design that is inspired by historical Chinese scripts.

“高铁泡面争议，是社会变迁的缩影.” Indeed.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)

Suipian is coming to you from Rotterdam on this 端午节. I have spent the last few months mostly here for personal reasons, but China never feels far. Whether it is the ever-expanding range of authentic Chinese food offerings, the number of high-quality events, or the first European museum designed by a Chinese architecture firm that recently opened in my neighborhood (see this video and pictures below), these cultural trends feel energetic and like they have their own momentum apart from the political cycle, at least for now.

The below selection is as random as ever – hope there’s something you enjoy.

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

Like many, I am struggling to keep up with political developments, let alone my emotions around them. So I was touched when, on podcast 不合时宜, I heard Chinese semiconductor industry strategist Lu Ming discuss how every day he has to remind himself of what has changed: “我们已经处于一个不短的历史趋势的可能是头部，然后它在一时半会是结束不了的，抱着一种侥幸心理去期待世界不是这样子不会有任何的帮助,” he says, adding that: “这是我经常,每天,都跟自己在说的一件事情.”

Lu Ming, who built his career between the US and China and readily admits the subject is emotional to him, puts words to how, years into these events, people are affected by them on a daily basis. At this point, US-China decoupling in many areas does indeed feel locked in, and for industry players that means they plan accordingly, thereby further shaping the separation of markets or supply chains (“这跟你喜不喜欢它，赞不赞同它没有任何关系”).

At the same time, the last months show how many variables there still are within that scenario. Not having been able to report on it myself, I have appreciated stories on the impact of the announced tariffs on those working in the export sector, such as this earlier round-up with 20 trade professionals by 晚点LatePost, an update on the post-negotiations logistics rush by 凤凰, or this popular, fun story by 正面链接 reporter 蒋一凡 on 王大哥 from 胶州，who made money manufacturing Trump hats but has now soured on the US president.

I have been struck by a focus in what I am reading on how people should be protected from the economic fallout, from calls to respect the role of “无数企业主” in China’s development (“在这样的环境变化下，这些辛苦奋斗一生的人应当获得支持，有生存空间”) to the question of what happens if Chinese companies cannot keep adapting. Together with the growing urgency of measures supporting Chinese consumers – as one viral (and deleted) piece put it in April, in this trade war, “please give the bullets [as in the state support] to the people” – it is clear that in China this discussion is being held in the context of several years of economic downturn, and that simple appeals to optimism or nationalism do not fit the mood.

It's hard to say where things will stand in a few months. Given the depressing news on student visas, the cases of Chinese students suing US authorities are worth following, as is this U.S. politics account and the 美轮美奂 podcast. And researcher 吕晓宇 muses on a “没有美国的世界” by way of Iran.

Finally, perhaps drawing on my own remaining 侥幸心理, it does seem to me that no single narrative can capture the complexity of our current intertwinedness. Whatever happens next, our age of “逆全球化或者全球化大幅度的降低” will also still be very global.

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Recommendations in and out of the news-cycle

This 8-part podcast on the story of 故事FM founder Kou Aizhe’s Japanese midwife, who moved to 东北 in 1940 and left in the early ‘90s, is impressive and moving (here on Youtube but also on any podcast app).

Literary translator He Yujia writes a funny, thoughtful essay on the future of her profession and what AI can and cannot take away from her. “从前找我翻译的人改用AI，也阻止不了我看到一段精彩的文字，想要把它转化成另一种语言的渴望，当成练习，作为消遣，也是人生一大乐事.” On Wechat account 天使望故乡 (worth a follow).

In the opening piece of the Made in China special issue on Chinese journalism, communications scholar Fang Kecheng points to the “continuing vibrancy of Chinese journalism” that can especially be seen in the work of individual news creators working in different mediums, both in China and in the diaspora. While it remains shocking to take stock of how much worse the professional media environment is these days (although journalists keep at it), I agree and was reminded of a line by 单读 editor 吴琦 in one of their recent publications titled “有的没的”: “也许，我们要在今天的种种艰难中走下去，借助的并不是系统化的理论或者明确的话语，而就是一些“有的没的”… 看到自己喜欢的东西被允许存在，是一种尊严.”

“Women我们” writes about the verdict of Yashar Shohret, who was faced with more state scrutiny following his participation in the White Paper protests in Chengdu and was recently sentenced for his Uyghur songwriting. See also their earlier feature on the 26-year-old 业余 musician.

“两个女生一起成家、生娃、育儿.” In this essay for 三明治，author 阿川 writes in clear and lively prose about how she and her partner L gradually and purposefully shaped their family.

Also about two women, this 三联 story on“两位女性相差60岁的友谊” in which reporter 刘姝颖 gets close to 阿转, a Guangdong elderly woman who stayed single all her life as part of the 自梳女 tradition.

On 交错带, a new account dedicated to “东南亚的边境宇宙”, see this translation of a 缅语日记 by a labor migrant from Myanmar who worked in China since 2016. The diary, found in a border town apartment, paints a detailed picture of life as an undocumented migrant in China, with the author passing as a non-Mandarin speaking Yunnanese minority when needed and frequently getting discriminated, and ends with reflections on the growing pressure to return to Myanmar to join the army.

See also the reporting by 南方人物周刊 journalist 杨楠 on the Myanmar earthquake, which , she writes “对于一个受贫穷和战火困扰的国家来说, 这场地震激化了许多长期存在.. 的问题。地震就像一把盐，撒在了一个本就冒血的伤口上面.” In a podcast interview with writer Liu Min (with great show notes), Yang Nan discusses her disaster reporting, explaining why the events in Myanmar feel close to many Chinese – and indeed seem to be followed there more closely than in many other places – but how, for any destination, when you see the person in front of you “你还会觉得他跟你有关联”.

From 经济观察报, two down-to-earth features on 1) the rapid growth of Beijing suburb Yanjiao (“目前燕郊人口达110万，比2023年增加近20万”), and 2) the structural issues around parking in Chinese urban neighborhoods.

An essay by journalist Chen Wanqing on the classic subject of a 绿皮车 train ride, during which she sits so close to people that it makes no sense not to talk and thinks about her recently deceased grandfather (“我想象，他不沉默的时候是什么样子?”)

Useful new study on the strengthening role of China’s judiciary, also in standing up to local governments or police – as long as the cases do not involve citizens’ political rights.

A story and a popular book (with a nice cover) on the growing climbing scene in China.

Vincent Chang writes about his trip visiting tombs of the thousands Chinese workers who died supporting World War I and were buried in cemeteries in Belgium and northern France

This first issue of Cold Window, a new newsletter by translator Andrew Rule introducing Chinese fiction, made me sign up.

Sad that several great Beijing venues, who I was so glad to see had survived the lockdown years, are now closing. fRUITYSPACE, the music venue by the art museum, cites “合约到期+经济下行+精力有限” as reasons, and in general the economy seems to be a key culprit for the ‘why now’ (also for Dada and 凹凸). See their closing notice for a contemplative screenshot.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)

I hope you’ve been well. Today’s edition is a bit shorter than usual (maybe a good thing). Welcome also to those of you who subscribed because of the kind shout-out by David Ownby, who translated the 端传媒 story on Covid grief and anger that I shared last time. If you did not have a chance to read it, I recommend his excellent translation (and the rest of the Reading the China Dream website).

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

When the new Trump administration got started on their ‘breaking things’ agenda, Western mainstream media quickly framed this as a great opportunity for China, especially on issues like the dismantling of USAID. I was struck by how that conversation seemed all but absent in China, where there was shock and some gloating at the chaos, but as far as I could tell not much talk, at least among the public, of how these developments might benefit China’s rise. I explored this topic in a few stories (and a Dutch podcast) for which I talked to experts but also to people like Mr. Ye, a retired Beijinger who I met in a park and who took some time from listening to his audio book to kindly mansplain me on how things look from China.

His views – on America as an unreliable ‘paper tiger’, a shockingly weak Europe, sympathy for Ukraine, China as responsible but not interested in becoming 老大 (“有多累啊，你起码需要更大的军队，需要很多基地，你得出力，出力之后你自己国家管不了了，中国自己问题不少 -- 共产党不傻了，他不具备做老大的能力，老百姓也不会赞成”) – are not very surprising, as they fit with one common worldview in China. But perhaps that’s exactly why they are worth occasionally jotting down. Someone else, an urban professional in their 40s, told me that “we don’t have that international mindset. And maybe there will be no new number one for a while. Just look at history, for instance at the period of the five dynasties and ten kingdoms. Let’s try not to think about this in overly simplistic terms.”

As a general China correspondent doing a bit of everything, it can feel funny when someone asks me what my focus is. But, if anything, I think one of my goals should be to inject some of those Chinese street-level or societal views into our news. Most Western news stories on geopolitics don’t feature any Chinese non-state voices, but that does not mean China’s domestic affairs or public opinion are irrelevant to Chinese state thinking on these issues, or that these voices aren’t valuable in their own right. (Of course, a key obstacle is the difficulty of interviewing in China, but that gets a bit easier the less directly China is involved, which made Beijing street interviews on Trump more doable for tv colleagues too.)

点赞 // Dianzan // Likes

Recommendations in and out of the news-cycle

At WOMEN我们, a profile of 富察, the Chinese-Taiwanese book publisher who was recently convicted to three years of prison on secession charges after disappearing during a visit to the mainland in 2023. It vividly portrays a man who seems hard to pin down, and who introduced authors as diverse as Yan Xuetong, Peter Hessler and Louisa Lim to a Taiwanese readership. The piece also discusses the fear and uncertainty his disappearance caused: “从2019年到2023年之间发生了什么，中国的尺度发生什么变化，完全没有人知道. 风险到底是来自变化，还是没有变化的部分？

ICYMI: the new weekly newsletter from the 民间档案馆. I love the format of exploring a piece of their vast online resources each week. See also the recent 不明白 episode in which co-founder Ian Johnson talks about it (recorded in Holland!).

单向街’s literature awards are on their 10^th edition this year, and in this piece founder Xu Zhiyuan and some literary 嘉宾 look back on the past decade. I learnt that the literary brand’s name is a reference to Walter Benjamin’s One-Way Street (also an enjoyable read).

In 正面链接, an interesting feature on the rise and fall of private kindergartens in China, in large part due to increasingly stringent regulation. “2019年，全国民办幼儿园总数达到顶峰，此前的17年，民办幼儿园从5.55万所（2003年），增加到17.32万所（2019年）。2020年，这个数字将第一次下降，并在接下来几年持续加速下降。2020至2023年，民办幼儿园减少的数量分别是5280所、1254所、6213所、11013所.”

Communication scholar Fan Yang walks through Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei and sees how the 山寨 history of the area is being erased.

As always, the “记者的家”新闻奖 award list is really worth a look for getting a sense of what investigative journalism is still happening in domestic Chinese media. With this year’s big prize for the 新京报 report on the contaminated tankers transporting cooking oil, and other awards for work that I had missed, such as a 指定居住 case and a Caixin feature on people jailed due to owning fake guns. (Thanks to Fang Kecheng’s Newslab for posting.)

Good piece in 澎湃 on the (possibly immense) difficulties of switching phone numbers in today’s 实名 China. Be warned!

My colleague, tech reporter Marc Hijink, is currently in China promoting the Chinese translation of his book on ASML, the Dutch semi-conductor company that has found itself in a global spotlight amidst the US-China tech war. I found it a really informed and nuanced account. See here for the book’s details (CN version, EN version), and here for an in-depth Chinese interview with the author, in which he, as is usual in his reporting, searches for metaphors to explain the complex technology: “其实你可以把芯片工厂想象成面包店。在面包店里，烤箱是一个核心工具；而在芯片工厂，光刻机是核心工具。它就像一台巨大的复印机，以某种方式复制芯片设计，并将其印在硅晶圆上，这是通过光的技术来完成的.”

A sad first-person account by 35-year-old and cancer patient 阿娇 on a difficult and accomplished life in 三联. It got a lot of views, perhaps also because of all the societal insights between the lines.

This recent paper by political scientists Shaun Breslin and Mikael Mattlin is a dense read, but I found it a smart analysis of “why dominant perceptions of China have shifted over the past decade in Europe” that also tries to explain how that happened (think tanks played a big role) and lines out some of the practical challenges of maintaining effective cooperation within a dominant frame of its potential threats. Interesting read in this moment of shifting narratives.

A student interview with Dutch sinologist Rens Krijgsman on 出土文献, the textual materials on bamboo and silk that have been unearthed in large amounts in the last decades (part 1, part 2). See also the open-access journal he co-edits on what the discovered texts tell us, for instance about women in the Qin-Han transition.

“What did Chinese millennials grow up watching?” and 山西面食

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)

I’m happy to send you this dispatch from Beijing. Ahead of the New Year holidays, the city – never too loud these days, what with all the EVs and population control – is getting downright quiet. But it’s been a lovely (worryingly mild) winter here so far, with lots of blue skies. Since I last wrote, I’ve spent time reporting here, in Holland, and in Taiwan, working on some stories I’d long wanted to do. I’ll save you a blow-by-blow account, but see below for a few links and thoughts. 新年快乐.

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

1. Reporting politics. When CNN’s Clarissa Ward recently interviewed a Syrian man who pretended to be someone he was not, the journalistic error was corrected within days. I’ve been wondering what it says about China reporting that it has taken years for some of the media that cited controversial, Holland-based dissident Wang Jingyu on topics including Chinese overseas police stations and influencing practices to retract those stories, following mounting evidence of his unreliability. NPR, which has led the way in uncovering that evidence, has cited journalism experts who think it is one of the largest cases ever of a single unreliable source influencing media coverage. Assisting two colleagues on a related investigation in recent months, I learned a lot from diaspora interviewees, some of whom had long been documenting and warning about Wang’s misconduct, exchanging information across big political divides (from dissident to United Front-adjacent) in search of the truth.

Linguistic and political barriers between mainstream media and Chinese diaspora groups go some way in explaining why diaspora knowledge went unheeded. 23-year-old, English-speaking Wang exploited those barriers. What factchecks might have prevented that? We tend, understandably, to focus on the barriers and smoke screens put up by the Chinese state, but this was arguably more about networks and knowing more people to cross-check things with. “If anything, the case shows what the much-discussed China capacity gap is about,” an interviewee on another story noted.

We still do not have an overview of this case, both in terms of damage done to victims and the impact on China policy debate in several European countries. (See here for the story I worked on, in which we tell some previously unreported victim stories and document the Dutch authorities’ lack of action.)

2. 同温层. I also got to write a much more uplifting story on the Chinese diaspora in Europe, one that I had long hoped to do. As several European countries like Holland and Germany, due to factors like lower tuition fees and relatively open immigration systems, have attracted a new generation of Chinese migrants, this has also led to “totally new” types of grassroots diaspora community formation, as China migration scholar Pál Nyíri put it to me, in which Chinese migrants build like-minded communities that can be more socially or politically oriented, or both. In Holland, the trend has led to multiple Chinese-language stand-up comedy groups, but also to new NGOs, galleries, and bookstores, including a Dutch affiliate of 飞地 called Nu Hier (‘now here’/ ‘nowhere’). At the bookstore’s opening event, founder Michael Liu said he wanted to love his new home city of the Hague even more; 有风 comedy club Ma Weina told me that, while she plans to stay in the Netherlands long-term, she does not want to do without the joy of communally laughing at untranslatable Chinese puns. “It just makes me so happy.”

How to be ‘diasporic’ and handle the challenges of life abroad and how to maintain ties with China has been a big and often heavy theme among recent Chinese emigrants. Seeing how these groups, many of which have formed in the last five years, are creating the European societies they want is really inspiring.

3. Offline life. A wave of independent bookstores in Chengdu that opened during and after the lockdown years has attracted attention in China because of how 活跃 the stores have been, organizing lots of events when that level of public life has become quite rare in first-tier cities. It’s been hailed as “a return to offline life” and an opportunity for “citizen education”. I had one of the most enjoyable reporting experiences of the past year trying to understand what was happening. See here for the Dutch story I wrote on the trend, and if interested please stay tuned for a related piece that should still come out in English.

点赞 // Dianzan // Likes

Recommendations in and out of the news-cycle

Two years after China suddenly lifted its virus control measures, 端传媒 has a special story on a Wechat group of bereaved who lost loved ones during that first massive Covid-19 wave. The group is monitored, with self-censorship leading to lighter moments in the piece (“弱弱问一句，郭嘉是谁?”). It speaks to the specific grief of a collective trauma giving way to unacknowledged individual suffering – as well as to a wider cognitive dissonance, recognizable beyond China’s borders, that divides those who could more or less move on from those who cannot: “时间在流逝，星星感觉到，新冠把今天的人们隔绝在两个世界：新冠丧亲者和后遗症患者在一个世界，其他人在另一个世界。她很难再在现实生活中去讲新冠放开的事，周围人只是困惑于, “她为什么还在纠结这件事?”

In Taipei I had the chance to watch Lou Ye’s 不完成的电影, on a film crew getting stuck in Wuhan during the 2020 lockdown. The film, which won the Golden Horse awards for best feature film and director last November, might not be the “first brick” in the wall of Chinese Covid-commemoration, as one review put it (several came before). But it is a smart and moving piece of docufiction with excellent acting. Go see it at a film festival if you have the chance.

每日人物 talks to 千千律师事务所’s Lin Lixia on two decades of legal activism to improve rural women’s access to their land rights. A new law that comes into force this May has taken a lot of their suggestions into account, but she knows loopholes like “respecting history” will continue to pit women against entrenched local interests: “我看很多专家学者写文章都说，中国很大，农村很复杂，关于成员资格问题，不适合做详细规定，应该交给村民自治去决定。但这20年，我们接触了这么多具体案例，我觉得，尽管全国很大，农村很复杂，但根本问题是一样的——那就是对婚嫁女性的歧视和排斥。单纯依靠村民自治的基层民主形式，就是现实中并不能有效解决侵害妇女土地权益的问题”.

In 三联周刊 a case in point in this story on how improved rights protection can lead to new problems, as workers who have participated in litigation cases against previous employers report being discriminated against in today’s tight labor market.

“在北京，四个单亲妈妈和她们的「好东西」”. And see here for a good review of the popular and “非常当下” feminist film referenced in the story

“反向春运” — interesting news story on the seniors traveling to the city to spend New Year with children or family there.

A 2023 documentary on iQiyi about 于小龙, a lively man with severe cerebral palsy, who takes his electric tricycle on a trip around China. Strongly recommend.

With most disaster reporting just about impossible, 端 still went to Zhuhai, after the mass-killing there. The story provides a lot of detail on what victims and family members, who each had 7-8 people from their 街道办 following them around to help and surveil, have to consider before taking an interview.

Longreads by journalists, such as this compelling 正面链接 story by veteran reporter Wu Qin, going viral was an unexpected outcome of the recent debate on the scamming crisis in Myanmar and Cambodia.

Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary China, a new book on the diversity of China’s lay Buddhist communities by religion researcher Kai Shmushko.

“1985vs2024:两版《明天会更好》对比”

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)

Just at the two-month mark, I am happy to send you another newsletter. This one is mostly links, recommending some longreads that I thought were really worth my time. But first, I wanted to share a conversation I had with a Dutch student who spent the 2023-2024 academic year at Nanjing University, in the same classrooms in which I spent a formative year myself (in 2010-2011). I have been wondering about who ‘still’ chooses to study in China, and what their experience is like. Hearing Leon’s firsthand experience really drove home some of these intergenerational changes for me – both for foreign students of Chinese and their Chinese peers. (But there are continuities too.)

In the past months, I also went on reporting trips to Shanghai, Chengdu and Chongqing, writing about the economy and migrant rights as well as some cultural topics, like the opening of a new Rodin art center in Shanghai. Not all of those stories are out yet, and I hope to come back to one of them in the next issue.

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

Exchange. When I met Leon Verbakel at the end of the summer, he had returned to the Netherlands just days earlier. He was tanned from months of traveling back from China to Europe westward, through Central Asia, and his relaxed cargo outfit was complemented by a jade bracelet (“bought in Ruili”) and necklace.

During his bachelor’s degree program in Chinese studies at Leiden University, the usual exchange program had been canceled due to China’s pandemic measures. Before he went to Nanjing, Leon (22) had studied Mandarin for three years, a choice motivated by wanting to learn something both practical and cultural, but never visited the country.

Like me, Leon had an amazing time in Nanjing. He had found community, especially outside the university, such as in a bar that “became [his] classroom”. During breaks, he traveled extensively, talking to strangers in hostels and on slow trains (including a 36-hour K-train on a hard seat). He thought people were “very open” and interested in his perspective as a foreigner. But in contrast to my experience in the early 2010s, when the mood was upbeat, he also noticed that many people his age seemed lost and pessimistic about their future.

In an essay he published about his study abroad year on LinkedIn, which is how I got in touch with him, he focuses on these realities of the young people he talked to. He summarizes their plight under three headings: pressure (“from many sides”), disillusionment (“the idea that all these problems will not improve in the future”), and patriotism, a topic on which he was surprised by the contradictions many people expressed between pride for their country and disapproval of how it is going. It is a very good read, filled with examples from his year about how people in this generation struggle with and try to resist structural challenges facing them.

Leon said he had felt some responsibility to write about the hard things people had shared with him, and to spread these stories, given how few of his fellow Dutch students were spending significant time in mainland China (more were going to Taiwan). Translating the essay back into Chinese to show to friends, he also found that “people really appreciate it when you, as an outsider, acknowledge their problems.”

Apart from his keen insights into a younger generation I am less in touch with, a couple of things from our conversation stayed with me. First, just how much you can learn in a year on the ground. Leon was really well-versed in Chinese contemporary society, from how to have fun with the many 叔叔 in his life to memes and navigating politics with strangers. He had worried about what to publish on Wechat and despaired at the oppressive atmosphere he felt in Xinjiang. No new insight, but it was a powerful reminder of how irreplaceable that kind of time is. (As he put it himself: “that people say ‘上面’  instead of  ‘习近平,’ you don’t learn that in Taiwan”.)

But while for me, my year in Nanjing affirmed plans to live and work in the country, for Leon it was much less clear what this year meant for his future. He was frequently told that he was “too late”, and that the best time for being in China was over. In his essay, he mentions sad ‘jokes’ among students of Chinese about being late to the economic miracle but maybe in time for a war. While he plans to continue studying Chinese, next to a law degree, his experience illustrates how much has changed since young graduates’ interest in China was applauded. Meanwhile, our need for people with their language and cultural skills has arguably only increased now that so much is at stake.

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Recommendations in and out of the news-cycle

Journalists 王佳薇 and 姚雨丹 from 南方人物周刊 report on the shady, illegal industry of egg donations for surrogacy in China. Anecdotally, there is a lot of debate on 代孕in China right now. This disturbing story, which was not censored, focuses on the young women tricked into a physically taxing process (“她们大多数是为了减轻家里负担，比如挣钱交学费，还有两个女生是为了给男友还债…许多女孩都坦白过“根本回不了头”的绝望感”).

The Paper with the harrowing story of 灵儿, a trans woman who sued the hospital that had given her electroshock ‘conversion’ therapy against her will. See also this analysis on the crackdown on LGBTSQ activism since 2020, which has resulted in related issues being less visible in the media and generating less public attention. The well-written 澎湃 story, which features a range of voices in the trans community and also provides some hope, is an exception to that trend, but I only saw it because a friend shared it, while in the past it might have been bigger on social media.

润出中国又回流的人. An interesting feature on some elite migrants who moved back to China after living abroad (“我不想做二等公民”) which, as an aside, suggests there were loopholes in the 二维码 virus control system that were systematically used by privileged groups to evade controls.

I really enjoyed this new tv-documentary telling the story of C.K. Yang, an athlete of Taiwanese indigenous descent who was a top contender at the 1960 Olympic Games. See also a review by Filip Noubel.

A deep dive into Chinese migrant worker poetry at the Working Class History podcast. I especially enjoyed the line-by-line discussion of a poem by Zheng Xiaoqiong in episode 1.

“我与权力的距离”. Excerpts from a bestseller by academic Yang Suqiu, who wrote about her stint as a local official in a Xi’an district. In it, she reflects on the culture of local officialdom (learning the differences between 阅，阅处 and 阅示) and on how the mix of flattery, discrimination and corruption she encounters makes her feel: “在我踏入官场的第一个月里，我去过不同的场合，“被重视”的轻微快乐以及“被忽视”的轻微失落，都发生过。我把它们摘出来放在手心注视，它们从什么样的土壤里长出来，我要把土壤清除，我不允许以后我的心里再长出这种蘑菇.”

I am late to this post by photographer Faye Liang about the challenges of doing climate photojournalism in China right now. In addition to the growing frequency of extreme weather events, obstacles include: “the authorities’ tightening censorship, the public’s growing caution and distrust, and media companies’ diminishing willingness and ability to pay the high costs of covering extreme weather events”.

深度对谈 | 中国Z世代审核员：生存吃饭最重要. Part of this interview with a young censor of political content on a major Chinese internet platform was translated into English by China Digital Times. But it’s worth reading the full version on diaspora magazine 莽莽 MANG MANG for a complex picture of a guy who feels squeezed into the 底层, likes politics, and has only occasional guilt about the impact of his work (“比方说新冠肺炎还有郑州大水，还有包括一个叫江雪的人写的《长安十日》，删这些我真的有负罪感”).

The authors featured on this China Books Review list of recent travel writing books are each deeply informed about the regions they write about, and I’ve enjoyed reading or learning about their work. Early this year I interviewed Bai Lin, also on this list, whose knowledge about the Balkan region she writes about is encyclopedic. China does not have a lot of books by foreign correspondents (for better or worse), but it’s great to see this genre of emigrant and other travel non-fiction grow.

A thought-provoking James Scott obituary (even if its conclusions don’t fit well with China).

Only having known his first-generation migrant parents as working non-stop in their fast-food restaurant, Dutch-Chinese writer and journalist Pete Wu is pleasantly surprised when after their retirement his parents thrive in an elderly Dutch-Chinese community. A really lovely feature (in Dutch but the automatic translation is ok). See also this story by Wu on the last night of business in his parents’ snackbar, the typically Dutch establishment serving fried snacks that since the 1990s have often been run by Chinese migrants, and this interview with researcher Grazia Ting Deng on a similar phenomenon in Italy, where Chinese migrants manage many of the country’s traditional coffee bars.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)

I hope you have been having a good summer. I have been moving between riversides in China (Liangmahe) and Rotterdam (Nieuwe Maas) – and feel lucky to be able to do that. Heading back to Beijing this weekend.

This is a pretty long one. It looks like this newsletter will come out once every 1-2 months (aiming for shorter monthly ones), and you might find I get to things a bit slow – certainly not at news cycle pace. But I hope you enjoy this edition and find something in it to add to your late summer reading.

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

1. Generations. I recently wrote a brief review of Peter Hessler's new book Other Rivers: A Chinese Education for our paper. Although the Dutch translation was not great (and somehow came out before the original), I thoroughly enjoyed the tour de force of this book on how members of two generations (or even three, per Yangyang Cheng’s much better review) experience China’s development. As a long-time fan, I was struck this time by Hessler's ability to articulate concrete cultural characteristics of Chinese society today without essentializing them. I am someone who is wired towards identifying commonalities rather than differences, but for weeks after reading Other Rivers, I'd walk around Beijing with new language and awareness of what I encountered (in the public safety culture, say, or in terms of people’s high – but shifting – tolerance for environmental noise).

One evening, as I was out reporting for a story on electric vehicles in Hefei, I also remembered Hessler's writing on how his Sichuan University students brought the grit and capacity for boredom ("one of the lesser-known secrets of effective journalism") that they cultivated preparing for the gaokao to his reporting assignments. It inspired me to stick around outside a BYD factory for longer than I otherwise might have – long enough for my reporting luck to improve and have a lovely dinner conversation with a few engineers after their shift. 

As I mention in the review, this book is more about politics than Hessler’s previous books. His follow-up piece in ChinaFile revisits some of the most politically charged moments of his 2019-2021 experience in China. As for the term 'sideline sinology' it introduces to refer to a generation of experts who do not spend time in the country – I don’t think ‘presence in China’ should be emphasized as a dividing line within China research communities. There are so many great China scholars who for a variety of reasons don’t spend much time in the country. And while on-the-ground presence is irreplacable, the digital and transnational topics many now research from abroad are hardly ‘sideline’ phenomena. But I certainly sympathize with Hessler’s critique of unfair criticism lobbed from the sidelines. I have also noticed that, while in Europe China is not (yet) a very politicized topic among the wider population, the atmosphere among China professionals can get more tense and polarized than 5 or 10 years ago. Perhaps this is inevitable given our disparate experiences and beliefs but it's also unfortunate, as basically all of us share an aim of better understanding Chinese society. 

2. Hu Youping. It’s been a while but, like many, I was moved after the passing of Hu Youping, the 54-year-old Suzhou school bus attendant who restrained a man with a knife from attacking a Japanese boy and his mother before being attacked by him herself. Initial media reports, including mine, focused on the online vitriol, inevitable given the dominance of extreme nationalists on China’s internet, and the state actors who tried to downplay the Japan connection.

But the real story was arguably the wider societal response or 全民纪念, as media scholar 闾丘露薇 later called it, that mourned Hu and was critical of the nationalists (even leading to pressure on the internet platforms that usually fan anti-Japanese hate to curb it). It was nice to see these moderate views that public opinion studies often find (as I did in my study of Chinese immigration attitudes) receive attention, as they tend not to.

In the days after the news broke, essays appeared critically reflecting on online nationalism and asking for more information about Hu (“知道了她的名字，还远远不够”). Several articles by Phoenix News and 南方周末 filled in details on Hu’s career as a factory worker, cleaner and entrepreneur and her lively personality. If you were also wondering about the person behind the touchingly plain passport picture in the official announcement (“你看她那张脸，再普通不过了”), you might have a look, also to reflect on what ‘ordinary’ – visually, ethically or otherwise – even means. (Calls for more information on the attacker, according to some also a victim of a “天天都在上演的大戏” were censored.)

3. Dissident stories. Disturbing stories about Wang Jingyu have been going around for years, following his arrival in continental Europe as a self-professed - and soon much-cited – dissident while those in Chinese dissident circles did not know him. NPR's Frank Langfitt did the community a service by thoroughly reporting on one of those stories, finding that the serious harassment of a Chinese dissident's family that was previously reported as being perpetrated by Chinese state actors can be linked to Wang.

There is more to look at on Wang (see for instance this article from France in which he is an important source, and several other stories linked to him involving bomb threats), and on his motivation. The reporting on his claims in the international press on topics like overseas Chinese police stations (with so far a retraction by AP) illustrates the complexity of Chinese diaspora stories. There are so many stories of dissidents and overseas minorities that need telling (like, recently, this good WSJ profile of a young and active Europe-based dissident), while fact-checking what the CCP is and is not doing abroad is difficult but important. At the same time, any reporter taking up these stories needs full institutional support as they are not without personal risk. 

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Recommendations in and out of the news-cycle

Sanlian journalist Chen Lu joins Paul Salopek on the last 70 kilometers of his years-long walking journey in China, where he walked along the 胡焕庸线 and had lots of interesting interactions. 人物 also did a feature on him, both well-read. (Also see Salopek’s own writing on his walk through China at National Geographic.)

A 24-minute documentary by director Rongfei Guo on two Chinese women’s travel to the US to freeze their eggs there, a fertility procedure not accessible to unmarried women in China (with a woman who had tried to sue a hospital into allowing her to freeze her eggs there recently losing her appeal). Also, this 不合时宜 podcast on the same topic.

端传媒新闻播客 has a 4-part podcast series out on 走线 in which reporter Zhaoyin Feng and others present a lot of migrant voices, including of people who took the Balkan route into Europe.

In-depth interview with scholar of Chinese dance Emily Wilcox in 澎湃’s 上海书评 that includes a lot of great images (and an abridged version in English).

Chinese non-fiction writer Yuan Ling does not like to generalize and wants to write about “人，你关心的是人，不是他身上的社会属性”. See this 单读 interview with Yuan on his new book about members of the Picun literature group, with sharp questions on gender and consent, and this piece about Yuan’s search for a side job that triggered debate on writing conditions in China since a recent downturn in book sales. Also, this list of 15 recent non-fiction titles that came out in China.

A short history of the binary phrase “China and the West”, which first became prominent in 1915-1929 and continues to suggest that when talking about China “[e]ssentially different perspectives seem to be at play”.  

Writer Ian Johnson’s New Yorker profile of essayist Gao Ertai and its authorized Chinese translation in the 波士頓書評 newsletter. It made me want to look at Gao’s memoir. From the preface: “瞪着惊讶的眼睛(显出智力的限度)，看世事如魔幻小说。看自己的过去，也觉得像是梦游.”

“Wardian case, glass, and fountain: A reflection on the history of shopping mall in Hong Kong” by Bo Wang and Lu Pan.

“她们取下戴了20多年的节育环” -- An artwork by artist Zhou Wending made of IUDs triggers conversation on the anticonception practices older generations of Chinese women have had to deal with.

Miriam Driessen and Ruiyi Zhu introduce China’s journey from “standards-taker to standards-maker” in a very readable academic introduction of a China Information special issue on standardization. I love these short but deep reform era histories on a specific issue.

You’ve probably seen it by now but, wow, what a good new issue of the Made in China Journal.

Intersections, a cool Substack on “coverage of women’s issues and feminism in the Chinese-language media space”.

“一代人有一代人的方便面”

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)

You’re receiving this because you have been subscribed to Changpian, my previous newsletter sharing Chinese nonfiction writing. Suipian, too, will share selected writing from and on China that I found worth my time, but recommendations will include more genres, including academic and policy research, and will now be in both Chinese and English (and beyond). 碎篇 is of course derived from 碎片 or ‘fragments’ but another character I kept thinking of was the 随 of 随笔, and there will be some of that too, mainly in the form of reporting notes.

To me, the shift from Changpian to Suipian reflects change in my own life (with chronic illness leading to more fragmented reading) and real shifts in the China media landscape. The small boom in nonfiction writing at Chinese domestic media has passed, and my Wechat timeline is no longer the treasure trove it was in the late 2010s. At the same time, with more Chinese writers and journalists working outside China, the amount of high-quality content on Chinese society produced in other parts of the world and in other languages is growing every day.

Also, geopolitics happened. Where in my early years as a reporter in China, I focused on telling stories that aimed to shed some light on ‘China beyond the headlines,’ that’s more difficult now that ‘China’ seems to be in all the headlines. I still try to highlight individual perspectives and diversity, but the new context of geopolitical and narrative shifts I can hardly keep up with somehow makes it very different.

Back in Beijing since January as a journalist for Dutch media, I find myself enjoying the work but in need of an outlet to process some of the changes. In a piecemeal way, I hope to do some of that here. It’s not quite what you signed up for (and there are a lot of newsletters out there these days!) so please consider if you’re still interested or want to unsubscribe. Suggestions and other feedback are, as always, very welcome too.

随笔 // Suibi // Notes

Sharing thoughts or resources related to my work as a correspondent

1. Back to reporting. When I came back to Beijing this year, it had been more than three years since I lived in China, and six years since I worked here as a journalist. Given the tightening political environment in those years, I was wondering to what extent it was still possible to interview people like I was used to. Would anyone agree to a street interview? Would spontaneous reporting trips still work out? A few months in, I find that interactions with ordinary people actually have changed the least: whether at a concert, a mountainous tourist site, on a Shanghai street or in a border town, you can find people willing to chat with a European reporter.

By contrast, planning interviews is more difficult, as people working in institutional settings such as universities or companies face more restrictions on talking to foreign media. Of course, state surveillance can also make it more difficult to engage, as I found during a recent trip to the border between China and Russia at Manzhouli, an Inner Mongolian border town, during which I was quickly followed around by plainclothes security people. That is nothing new, although stories from colleagues suggest it has become more frequent.

Even my limited reporting on that trip gave some insight into the contrast between the booming China-Russia trade that dominates headlines, and that was visible at the border in the form of hundreds of lined-up, brand-new trucks from places like Shandong and Henan, and the depressed border town, where residents felt sad and frustrated about the increase in poverty and destitution at the Russian side of their border (part of Russia’s Far East on which the war has exacted a much higher human toll than in its urban areas) which had collapsed traditional cross-border trade. These Chinese views on “the war” (and not ‘the crisis’) felt much more personal than what you hear in, say, Beijing. Glad I was able to hear them.

2. A great book. I recently reviewed the Dutch translation of novelist Shi Tiesheng’s magnum opus 虚无笔记, which had not been translated into any foreign language until Dutch literary translator Mark Leenhouts took it on. In my review (if you would like to read it but do not read Dutch, Google’s in-browser translation is mostly ok), I write about how the experimental novel from 1996, an interweaving set of love stories written as 237 notes over almost 700 pages, feels more postmodern and psychologically wrought than other great Chinese novels set in the Cultural Revolution.

I especially loved Shi’s recurring reflections on how we are shaped by the people in our lives – with our inner worlds a mix of the fallible memories of our own experiences and of our attempts to understand others’ – as well as his observing, non-judgmental, “just-right” tone, perhaps a product of his famed ability to, as a partially paralyzed individual in a society poorly equipped to deal with disability, “跳出个人的苦难看到了普遍的生命困境，由个人的残缺看到了普遍的人性的残缺”.

If the novel seems like a lot, consider [re-]reading Shi’s famous essay 我与地坛, on when he spent his days in his wheelchair in the famous park (“跟上班下班一样”) before discovering he wanted to write, or the equally moving and reflective 我二十一岁那一年 (also in excellent English translation).

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Recommendations in and out of the news-cycle

“From Palestine to ‘Xinjiang’”—an online teach-in with Darren Byler, organized by the 巴勒斯坦团结行动网络.

Yangyang Cheng compares recent student protests to those in China in 1989, arguing that the legacy of Tiananmen must be released “from the distortion field of Cold War politics and place it in a longer, larger history of struggle”.

An essay by veteran journalist 江雪 on how activists from different generations commemorate Tiananmen. It provides insight into the clear differences in style and priorities between these generations, on which I’m sure more will be written, but, as former TAM student leader Zhou Fengsuo concludes, “极权之下的抗争，六四依然是最大的公约数。”

Candid and moving reflections by lawyer and former journalist徐凯, who has taken on many public interest stories and legal cases while, as he writes, also struggling with professional ethics and the overlap between 公共利益 and 个人利益 . The rare Wechat 刷屏 article that stayed online. See also this podcast in which Xu elaborates on the artice in conversation with media scholar Fang Kecheng. (Includes a Shi Tiesheng reference.)

New additions to the 人社部 list of official professions, from 网络主播 to 滑雪寻救援, provide a glimpse into the times.

“54岁，做一个不扫兴的爸爸“. On 澎湃‘s 极昼工作室, a father shares his parenting philosophy, which has brought him fans: “在我女儿很小的时候，我就想明白了，我跟女儿是平等的，上一代不好的都要在我这里斩断，痛苦不能传播到下一代，我得让女儿在宽松、自由的环境下成长.”

Also by 极昼工作室, a story on the “代送阿姨” who deliver takeout in buildings the delivery drivers cannot easily enter, operating in an algorithmic grey zone.

An interview with 庄祖宜 Tzu-I Chuang Mullinax, the Taiwanese-American food blogger and wife of the (for now) last American consul in Chengdu. In her conversation with reporter Chai Jing, Chuang discusses the online violence she dealt with in 2020, when her popular social media accounts attracted months of nationalist attacks as US-China relations deteriorated. (Also, this lovely song.)

Interviews with historian Shen Zhihua and legal scholar He Weifang by SCMP-reporter Yuanyue Dang.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading :)