The geographic center of the world’s most populous country sounds like a busy place. But if you stabbed a finger at the middle of a map of China, you would most likely find yourself pointing at a sparsely-populated region once known as Tibet. Today, Tibet lingers on officially only as the TAR (“Tibet Administrative Region”), [...]
This article also appears on ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. Sina Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, announced on February 20 that it had surpassed half a billion users — more people than live in South America, and approximately the population of North America. Thickly-settled Europe edges out Weibo by about 230,000, but [...]
In June, I found myself placing a call to the Shanghai police. My twenty-year old friend, Lily , slumped on a nearby couch with her face in her hands. She would not call herself, she said, because “The police will not do anything.” Given her ex-boyfriend’s abusive past, and his incessant calling, texting, and stalking, I [...]
March marks the start of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, one of the Communist Party’s most important annual events. On March 5, 2012, a twenty-year-old college student named Li Ning caused uproar on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter, when she strode onto Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, removed all her clothes, and knelt on the cold paving [...]
This article also appears in The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. In March of 2008, the New York Times announced that marathoner Haile Gebrselassie would skip his signature event in the Beijing Olympics. After the news leaked, the world-record holder told reporters bluntly, “The pollution in China is a threat to my health.” The [...]
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