Tea Leaf Nation

This article also appears in The Atlantic, a Tea Leaf Nation partner site. To many outside China, it might have seemed like another straightforward heroine-and-villain celebrity divorce story. He is the founder of a hugely popular English learning program known as Crazy English, and is a household name in China. She was his American wife. [...]

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 [...]