Tea Leaf Nation

Almost half of all Chinese report feeling “more anxiety,” now than they did five years ago. What, exactly, is driving these concerns, or increasing reports of these concerns? Avid followers of China-related news might immediately think of censorship and other restrictions on freedoms, yet reports show that the main sources of anxiety in China lie [...]

An audience of some 50,000 followers on Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging platform, has helped Zhang Jing, 37, to cope with a huge marital stress: for two years, her husband has sat on death row, having been convicted of murder despite acting in self-defense. Zhang told Tea Leaf Nation that her sympathizers wrote to her: [...]

A rare protest in Beijing involving hundreds of people was documented by photos posted on China’s social media (scroll down to see photos). The cause of the protest was the death of a 22-year old migrant worker, who fell several stories from an apparels wholesale market building in Beijing on May 3. The police declared [...]

Rat meat + gelatin + red food coloring + nitrates = lamb. Have you tried it yet? “This is what a ‘complete’ sheep looks like,” reads a caption under the photoshopped image of a sheep with Jerry from Tom and Jerry as its head. The image was posted by @无锡微生活, an account that focuses on [...]

Is this another sign of the coming of the “China Century?” The Schwarzman Scholars Program, backed by Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman and launched at Tsinghua University in Beijing on April 21, might have the potential to become as prestigious as the Rhodes Scholarship one day. In 1902, six years after the death of Cecil John [...]

On April 16, 2013, while the attention of the world and the U.S. media was gripped by the Boston Marathon bombings, the Chinese news outlets and social media were captured by horrors of another kind: Huang Yang, a medical science graduate student at Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University, was poisoned to death, and the prime suspect [...]

China’s social media was in mourning yesterday as users turned their profile photos to grey in remembrance of the victims of the 7.0 earthquake that struck the Ya’an region in Sichuan province on Saturday. As of April 22, the death toll has risen to 192. The Ya’an earthquake is the most serious natural disaster to [...]

On 8:02 AM, China time, a 6.9 earthquake hit Ya’an, Sichuan province, a city of 1.5 million not far from Chengdu, the provincial capital. In just an hour, a notice about the earthquake had 84,000 retweets and over 7,000 comments. The tremors woke many in Chengdu, Sichuan, a city of 14 million, and were felt [...]

The third fatal victim of Monday’s Boston Marathon bombing was a Chinese graduate student at Boston University. The Chinese Internet is lit up with thousands of virtual candles in remembrance of her, amid some controversy over her background. The Chinese Students and Scholars of Boston University (BUCSSA) confirmed that the victim is the missing student [...]

This article also appeared in ChinaFile, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. The Huangpu River usually appears in glamor shots of Shanghai, serving as scenic backdrop to the colonial splendor of the Bund or the modern marvel of the Pudong skyline. But of late, a more grim and distasteful association emerged. As of March 12, [...]

This article also appeared in The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. “What is the concept [behind] the Charity Law? A certain amount from everyone’s paycheck will have to be donated, just like a tax… and one single Charity Law can solve all problems facing charity in China.” This controversial idea to treat charitable [...]

China’s social media is mourning the death of Baby Haobo, a two-month old boy, after a day of heart-wrenching search in the snow-covered city of Changchun for him ended in tragedy. On the morning of March 4, Haobo’s father left him in a SUV, with the engine running, while he went to turn on the [...]