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Ask Mei

Questions about Chinese culture

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Chinese passports gain value

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.

Competing celebrations

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 ...

Efficiency versus privacy

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 ...

Moutai, motorways and mountains

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 ...

Why the property obsession?

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 ...

Charlottesville stirs awkward memories

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 ...

One quarter of the sky?

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 ...

Chinese mythology

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 ...

The written language

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 ...

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