Author: Yi-Ling Liu

Yi-Ling Liu is a nonfiction writer based in Beijing who covers human stories about technology, culture and society. She previously reported for the Associated Press in Hong Kong as an Overseas Press Club Foundation Fellow, was the Editor-in-Chief of China Hands Magazine, and has contributed to Foreign Policy Magazine, SupChina, These Fifty States and the Huffington Post. She studied English literature at Yale University.
Dispatches

Slow Burn

Yi-Ling Liu

The rise of Chinese-American rapper Bohan Phoenix – Yi-Ling Liu

On a chilly spring day in a quiet neighborhood of East Beijing, Bohan Phoenix lounges on the divan of his hotel room. The twenty-five-year-old rapper flew in from Shanghai the night before, and is enjoying a pause after several whirlwind weeks promoting the launch of his new album Overseas. For a brief moment, dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt, black joggers, and a gold hoop on his left ear that once belonged to his grandmother, Bohan lies still, a Portrait of a Reclining Rapper in Repose.