Tea Leaf Nation

Even China was listening when U.S. President Barack Obama held a press conference yesterday to discuss his administration’s counterterrorism policy. The state-run Central China Television (CCTV) picked up and broadcast part of the speech – specifically, the portion in which heckler Medea Benjamin of antiwar NGO Code Pink interrupted Obama four times to demand answers [...]

The term “hardest job-hunting season in history” has become a buzzword in China recently. According to China’s Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, 6.99 million students will be graduating institutions of higher education this year, a record high since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. This intimidating number is inextricably [...]

Welcome to Tea Time Chat, a real-time discussion between Tea Leaf Nation writers about the issues that matter to them.  Tourism season is approaching in many parts of the world, so we asked our contributors their thoughts on a recent assertion by Chinese politician Wang Yang that the ‘uncivilized’ behavior of Chinese tourists abroad was damaging the country’s [...]

A recent survey of over 35,500 single ladies in China offers some insight into Chinese women’s attitudes towards men and marriage. The survey, which included questions such as “Why are you still single?” and “What kind of man do you hope to marry?”  shed light on the types of men that single Chinese women prefer, [...]

One year after a very similar incident occurred in the waters between China and North Korea, North Koreans once again allegedly hijacked a Chinese fishing boat, kidnapping 16 crew members and demanding a ransom of 600,000 yuan, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily and the boat’s owner, Yu Xuejun. Yu said on his Tencent microblog, another Twitter-like social media platform popular [...]

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 [...]

A news article published in early May suggests that reform may be in the works for China’s long-standing petitioning system, also known as the Letters and Visits system, which is often associated with scandals involving cruelty and inhumanity. On May 9, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported that in March, the State Bureau for Letters and [...]

On May 8, the Japanese government announced it would honor the 1995 war apology, a decision widely interpreted as a diplomatic gesture aimed at smoothing ties with China.  Tensions between the two countries have recently escalated due to events such as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s suggesting a possible revision of the 1995 apology, key cabinet [...]

At the entrance of Gongjian Hutong in Beijing sat a short thin man who walked with a limp and wore a blue, one-piece jump suit. He lived in a one-room metal shack with a clear sliding door and fixed bikes for a living, with a large shelf of tools next to his bed. He gossiped [...]

The island of Lanyu lies not far off the southeast coast of Taiwan — a small, bucolic island with a population barely exceeding 4,000. Aboriginal Tao people make up nearly 60% of the population, with the rest being mainly Han Chinese. Residents also share the island with a more unwelcome neighbor – the Lanyu Nuclear [...]

Last week, a speech by U.S. President Barack Obama on the value of engaged citizenship made waves in Chinese social media. “The core of Obama’s speech yesterday at the Ohio State University Commencement is ‘a sense of citizenship,’” posted influential Sina Weibo user @假装在纽约, or “pretending to be in New York,” a widely followed provocateur [...]

In Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality Among China’s New Rich, John Osburg, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Rochester, takes his readers into a shady underworld, where entrepreneurs and state bureaucrats mingle and forge the networks underpinning China’s socialist market economy.  Osburg’s informants include a cast of memorable characters, many of whom could just [...]