Ask Mei « Week In China

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Ask Mei

Questions about Chinese culture

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A charming place of 2,500 years old...
Apr 20, 2018 (WiC 405)

Decades of the “develop at all cost” model has transformed China from an economic backwater into a global powerhouse but also resulted in unprecedented environmental degradation, the destruction of historical relics and the spread of ...

Screen siren finally finds favour with film fans
Mar 16, 2018 (WiC 401)

Movie star Zhang Ziyi is not only a household name in China but also one of the most recognised Asian faces in the world. She shot to international stardom at the age of 21 with her leading role in Ang Lee’s martial arts film Crouching Tiger, ...

How far have Chinese passports travelled since 1985?
Jan 26, 2018 (WiC 395)

When Jack Ma of e-commerce giant Alibaba was growing up in the picturesque city of Hangzhou, he dreamed about having a passport and travelling overseas. Although he was hopeless with maths and mediocre with most other subjects at school, he had ...

What do JW Marriott, Delta Air Lines and Zara have in common?
Jan 19, 2018 (WiC 394)

Well, they all issued public apologies in China this month for making the “grave mistake” of listing Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau (and in Delta and Marriott’s cases, Tibet) as separate countries on their websites or in their market surveys.

Whose birthday is more important?
Jan 5, 2018 (WiC 392)

Christmas (or Sheng Dan Jie 圣诞节 in Chinese, meaning ‘Holy Birth Festival’) is historically not an important holiday in China. However, with the growing influence of commercialism and Western culture over recent decades, more and more ...

Which do the Chinese value more?
Dec 1, 2017 (WiC 390)

A recent visit to Guizhou, a supposed backwater in southwestern China, opened my eyes to how efficient the high-speed train system has become, especially compared to my slower experiences in the 1980s when I made twice-yearly train journeys ...

The "abnormal" growth of China's Guizhou province
Nov 3, 2017 (WiC 386)

A year ago (see WiC346) I wrote about China’s shift from imitation to innovation and mentioned that I was keen to visit Guizhou and see some of the acclaimed new highway bridges that account for over half of the world’s top 100 bridges (by ...

Chinese home ownership isn't limited to China
Sep 29, 2017 (WiC 382)

These days whenever I talk to my Chinese friends and relatives, even in third-tier cities like Weifang in Shandong, the topic somehow always shifts to property. Typical questions are “How much has your property appreciated since you bought ...

Is China still grappling with its Cultural Revolution?
Sep 1, 2017 (WiC 378)

To many Chinese like myself who grew up during the relatively open and liberal era that followed China’s Cultural Revolution – and who have fond memories of spending part of our youth in America – the growing sense of racial tension and ...

The changing lives of Chinese women
Jul 21, 2017 (WiC 375)

As mentioned in one of my previous columns (see WiC325), I believe one of the few positive legacies of Mao Zedong’s rule was lifting women’s status under his motto “women hold up half of the sky”. It was no small feat considering that ...

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