This article also appears on The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. On February 17, ex-Google China head Lee Kai-fu stated on Twitter that he had been locked out of China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo for three days, ostensibly for criticizing a Party-backed search engine called Jike and its sporting celebrity director Deng Yaping. Lee, who [...]
On February 1, a truck carrying fireworks exploded on a bridge in Henan province. According to state news reports, the explosion caused an 87-yard section of the bridge to collapse, in turn killing nine and injuring at least 15. Another news agency reported 26 dead. The Global Times, which usually hews closely to the Communist [...]
Millions of Chinese migrant workers fail to get paid for their work each year, in spite of ongoing government efforts to increase official monitoring of labor relations in the country. For some, however, attracting media attention and sympathy from China’s online community has proven to be an effective method of pressuring errant employers into coughing [...]
This article also appears in ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Are Chinese audiences growing weary of anti-Japanese propaganda? It would seem that some, at least, are growing sick of the pathetic villains, superhuman heroes and lame endings that many Chinese movies and television series about World War II, or what Chinese refer to [...]
The murder of Shenzhen high school sophomore Lai Zengyutong, tragic on its own, has hit China’s blogosphere particularly close to home. The late Ms. Lai was an avid microblogger fond of broadcasting her photos and location online, a habit many Web users suspect may have allowed her killer to track her. Lai’s death elicited more [...]
This article also appears in The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. In freewheeling and fast-growing China, providing an innovative service might be enough to get rich. In the case of China’s tightly regulated train ticket market, however, it is enough to get arrested. The story begins with the approach of China’s most important [...]
This article also appears in The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Chinese media is reporting en masse what at first glance seems impossible, even ridiculous: During rush hour in Beijing, taxis can be found parked idle at the curb in the busiest parts of the city, as would-be passengers struggle to find a [...]
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