Tea Leaf Nation

Zhou Enlai: I’m so close to getting all those fat green pigs!  Mao Zedong: Aim higher. Use the anger of our proletariat birds to undermine the capitalist superstructure. Deng Xiaoping: Someone get me a chair. 

“If love between the two is eternal, why do they have to be together day and night?” (“两情若是久长时，又岂在朝朝暮暮?”) Depicting the love between the Cowherd and the Weaver girl, two stars separated by the Milky Way, this famous verse written by 11th century poet Qin Guan has seized the imaginations of Chinese readers for centuries. Legend [...]

We at Tea Leaf Nation don’t usually venture out of our comfort zone and “meddle in the internal affairs” of a country we have no knowledge about. However, we can’t help but share this image, tweeted by Chin Yee Koh (@许振义), the Director of Asia Directorate at National University of Singapore, on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter.  [...]

Lu Yaming (@陆亚明), a business man in Shenzhen, recently shared a story on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter: “I remember when my daughter was really young and she asked me one day, ‘Daddy, do you always make money when you start a company?’ I said, ‘That’s hard to say. In fact, most companies lose money until [...]

Beat this, New York Times. This new caption on an Internet oldie has helped thousands of Chinese netizens understand the current saber-rattling between China and the Philippines over a barren rock in the South China Sea. As an example of its popularity, Reporter Peng Yongtang (@彭永棠)’s tweet with this captioned picture has generated more than 1,200 [...]

Mr. Tupac Shakur can rest in peace knowing that his influence has lived on through time and space–to rural China circa 2010, to be exact. This video, circulating on Chinese social media since at least 2010, shows a young man lip-syncing 2Pac’s classic rap song “California Love.” He certainly knows how to party — on [...]

Xu Weihua (@徐卫华), a mobile Internet analyst, tweets: “I heard that Apple’s CEO Cook was very happy with his trip to China, because he saw a lot of people on the streets using iPhones. There are iPhone3, iPhone4, iPhone4S, as well as iPhone5 and iPhone6. There are [iPhones] with three-inch screens, four-inch screens, five-inch screens, single-screens [...]

Maobama is old news, meet Colonel O’Sanders in China. Hey, don’t knock OFC before you try it. Tea Leaf Nation also wonders if President Obama were to start a franchise selling yummy fried chicken, might he have an easier time connecting with Southern voters in November? [Ed: As Charles Dashwood pointed out in the comments [...]

Say cheese and bunny ears! Four young attendants at the National People’s Congress sessions took photos in President Hu Jintao’s throne, with his name plate, after the end of a legislative session. 

The “What People Think I Do” Internet meme tornado has swept through a number of professions, from social media managers to Indian corporate lawyers. Chinese Communist Party members are now in its path. This picture, created by Ernest Lin (see his Google+ account here) with original translations from Tea Leaf Nation, views CCP members through various lenses and makes [...]

For anyone who can read Chinese, this is a delicious treat. Mr. Jack Bauer from 24 makes a guest appearance in Mr. Remon Wang’s (@变态辣椒2012) comics to offer further proof that U.S. intelligence agencies were indeed involved in Mr. Sima Nan’s accident.  The talented Mr. Wang had previously penned international hits such as the Pandaman. To respect the [...]

  The joke below from a netizen has been retweeted by Professor Han Zhiguo (@韩志国) and Professor Yang Jiacong (@王家骢的微博). Capitalists in the Mao era: those who already had their homes raided and those who will soon have their homes raided. Capitalists in the Deng era: those who have gone to jail and those who will [...]