A weekly roundup of news and analysis to help you follow key developments in China and the Chinese church.
Featured Article
Living loud in China's lively public spaces (March 11, 2017, BBC)
This country that I love is many things, but quiet is not one of them. There are plenty of bustling cities - rammed with millions of people - where you could be frowned upon for disrupting others with a raised voice: Seoul, London, Tokyo… especially Tokyo. China does not have those cities.
Featured Article
The Rasping on the Radio (March 2, 2017, The World of Chinese)
That’s right: once you’ve ridden with the radio-fanatic taxi driver enough, you may start to recognize certain voices. One in particular is an older-sounding man whose sandpapery tones seem to come from the depths of his acerbic, somewhat excitable soul. This is Shan Tianfang (单田芳), one of China’s pre-eminent artists in an ancient performing arts genre called pingshu (评书), which literally means “commenting on the book” but is usually referred to as “oral storytelling.”
Featured Article
Focusing on religious oppression in China misses the big picture (February 28, 2017, CNN)
Protestantism is booming and Chinese cities are full of unregistered (also called "underground" or "house") churches. These are known to the government but still allowed to function. They attract some of the best-educated and successful people in China. And they are socially engaged, with outreach programs to the homeless, orphanages, and even families of political prisoners. To me, this is an amazing story and far outweighs the cross-removal campaign, which basically ended and seems to have had no lasting consequences.
Featured Article
After being James, Peter, and William, I decided to stick with my Chinese name (February 14, 2017, Quartz)
Should Chinese people adopt English first names when interacting with Westerners? The benefits of doing so are obvious. Going by a conventional English name—but not weird names like “Candy,” “Promise” or “Devil“—makes everyone’s life easier. But my experiences studying and working in English-speaking multicultural environments in the past few years have made me realize that sticking to your Chinese name is better if you want foreigners to know who you are—and if you want to feel good about yourself.
Featured Article
How Spring Festival is being redefined? (February 13, 2017, China Daily)
For most Chinese, the weekend's Lantern Festival signaled the end of this year's Spring Festival and the return to real life and work in the new year. Traditionally, the holiday is celebrated at home with family. Fireworks and the giving of red packets make it the happiest time of year for children. However, modern lifestyles are rewriting how many Chinese celebrate this most important festival.
Featured Article
Chinese Converted out West Are Losing Faith Back Home (January 26, 2017, Foreign Policy)
Yet large numbers of converts give up after coming back to China. Volunteers and missionary staff who have worked for years with Chinese students in the United States estimate that 80 percent of believers eventually stop going to church after returning home. It generally takes time for returnees to find their places again in a country still searching for rules and norms to match its rapid economic and social changes.
Featured Article
It's Lunar New Year, and China's Young People Are Sick and Tired of It (January 29, 2017, Global Voices)
However, the traveling trend has shifted slightly in recent years, as more and more people decide to travel abroad during the holiday, in order to avoid seeing relatives altogether. Among the younger generation in particular, many find the Near Year's greetings and conversation among extended family members about their marriage and income status to be annoying.
Featured Article
China cracks down on VPNs, making it harder to circumvent Great Firewall (Marcy 23, 2017, The Guardian)
The nation’s ministry of industry and information technology announced a 14-month “cleanup” of internet access services, including making it illegal to operate a local VPN service without government approval. VPN services use encryption to disguise internet traffic so that web surfers in China can access websites that are usually restricted or censored by the Great Firewall.
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Have you rented a boyfriend for the Spring Festival? (January 18, 2017, China Daily)
The price of renting a boyfriend to take home with you is surging to as high as 1,500 yuan ($219) a day as Spring Festival approaches, chinanews.com reported on Wednesday. Some single women, who are pressured by their parents to marry, choose to rent a boyfriend for home to soften or dispel parents' dissatisfaction with their singledom. Catering to the market, men are advertising their availability at higher prices on social networking platforms.
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China’s Rural Poor Bear the Brunt of the Nation’s Aging Crisis (January 4, 2017, Bloomberg)
The outlines of China’s demographic challenge are well-known: By 2050 almost 27 percent of the population will be 65 or older, up from around 10 percent in 2015, according to projections by the United Nations and the China Research Center on Aging. Less recognized is that the crisis will hit hardest in villages like Shangxule, which are suffering the twin effects of China’s one-child policy and decades of migration to the cities.
Featured Article
Inside China's 'mosquito factory' fighting Zika and dengue (December 28, 2017, CNN)
Zhiyong Xi is a man on a mission. He wants to rid China -- and potentially the world -- of mosquitoes, specifically the ones that carry devastating diseases like Zika and dengue. And he's doing it in the classic style of good versus evil. "We're building good mosquitoes that can help us fight the bad ones," the entomologist said in his 3,500-square-foot laboratory in Guangzhou, China.
Featured Article
Weibo From A to Z: A Look Back at the Biggest Trending Topics of 2016 (December 27, 2016, What’s on Weibo)
As we are getting ready for a new year, What’s on Weibo reflects on the most popular trending stories on Chinese social media in 2016. It was a year where many things happened, from political controversies to online scandals and social hypes. Sometimes the most trivial things got big, while the biggest things remained trivial.