Ask Mei « Week In China

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Ask Mei

Questions about Chinese culture

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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 ...

Fake news about China’s ‘fighting spirit’
Jun 23, 2017 (WiC 371)

Last week an unsourced article with the headline “Harvard Professor: a national characteristic unknown even to the Chinese has kept the nation standing” went viral across China’s social media sphere. It alleged that a theology professor ...

Why Chinese scholars are as good as their word
Jun 16, 2017 (WiC 370)

During a recent visit to the birthplace of Confucius in Qufu in Shandong province, I was amazed and amused by an ironic fact. The two characters identifying qufu 曲阜on the stone tablet at the city gates were written in the hand of Mao Zedong ...

The duality of Chinese patriotism
May 26, 2017 (WiC 367)

One of the most hotly discussed topics among Chinese netizens in the past week was a graduation speech given by a Chinese student at the University of Maryland. In her address, Yang Shuping, a native of the southwestern city of Kunming, praised ...

Are there tasteful and intelligent TV shows in China?
May 5, 2017 (WiC 364)

In the past decade or so China’s TV channels have struggled with the balancing act of showing the politically correct material ordered by the Communist Party’s propaganda department and delivering the entertainment that boosts viewer ratings. ...

Is there religious freedom for Christians in China?
Apr 7, 2017 (WiC 361)

Most of the international press coverage on religious freedom in China focuses on government crackdowns on the “underground churches” but it overlooks how most of the “above the ground” churches operate. Recently I visited a ...

Another court ruling triggers an outcry
Mar 31, 2017 (WiC 360)

In recent years China has seen periodic outcries over unjust verdicts, prompting the central government to step in to investigate and sometimes correct faulty local rulings (for the cases of Deng Yujiao, Qoysiletu, Nie Shubin and Lei Yang cases ...

The line that took too long
Jan 13, 2017 (WiC 351)

The newly opened Second Avenue Subway in New York has attracted a lot of attention across China’s social media-sphere since its debut on the first day of the year. Numerous media outlets reported that the new subway is merely 3.2km long with ...

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