Essays

Mountain and Forest

Nick Stember

The Tao of Ursula K. Le Guin  — Nick Stember

Memorably described by China Miéville as an ‘unflinching radical, literary colossus, comrade, a giant of modern letters,’  tributes to Ursula K. Le Guin’s legacy have come from far and wide — to list just a few, Stephen King, John Scalzi, Neil Gaiman, N.K. Jemison, Naomi Klein — with many more doubtless to come. While Margaret Atwood has (rightly) pointed out the prescience of Le Guin’s 1969 novel, The Left-Hand of Darkness, readers might be surprised to learn that this book was inspired in part by ancient Chinese thought.

Chinese Corner

Animal Associations

Liz Carter

An introduction to the Mandarin menagerie – Liz Carter

When you say someone’s foxy, you would expect your listener to know that you meant he or she was very good looking. But like many things, these associations don’t always translate in Mandarin, where calling a woman a total fox can get you slapped. Animal associations and metaphors, which vary from person to person and place to place, can be tricky for the language learner. To that end, here are a few fauna-related expressions to give the lay of the land in the Mandarin animal kingdom.

Reviews

Seeing Ourselves in Others

Tabitha Speelman

Tabitha Speelman reviews Zhou Yijun’s Out of the Middle East

What lead to the nationwide bursts of street protests in Iran in the last week of 2017? “Eggs (a bad economy) and headscarves (a lack of freedom),” writes Chinese foreign affairs columnist Zhou Yijun. The former Middle East correspondent’s popular post on Tencent-sponsored platform Dajia goes on to discuss the possible involvement of “hostile foreign forces” (unlikely) and concludes with the need for Iran’s authorities to allow political reform.

Zhou’s article was part of enthusiastic online discussion in Chinese about the protests on either side of China’s Great Firewall. Although a censorship directive to “no longer hype” the protests came out after a couple of days – perhaps prompted by the amount of online commentators rooting for the protesters – earlier articles were not deleted. This space for coverage of political events outside China, where domestic censorship is growing ever stricter, is also what enabled Zhou's recent book on political reform across the Middle East, including Iran, to get past the censors and into bookstores.

Essays

Au Revoir to the Astor

Paul French

Bidding farewell to one of Shanghai’s iconic hotels – Paul French

The Astor House Hotel, in one form or another and under one name or another, has stood at 15 Huangpu Lu (previously known as Whangpoo Road) since 1846. Variously, it has been called Richard’s, The Astor House, and then the Pujiang since 1959. Just across from the Waibaidu, or Garden Bridge, on the north side of Suzhou Creek, its views have been somewhat obscured by the construction of the Russian Consulate in 1917 and the art-deco Broadway Mansions in 1934. But still the Astor stands – majestically occupying an entire block with its 134 rooms and suites, a sprung dancefloor, bars, lounges and a 500-seat restaurant. The building many know and love really dates to 1911, when it was one of the city’s finest hotels. Now, due to new regulations on state enterprises owning commercial businesses, the Astor, which is owned by the Shanghai Stock Exchange for convoluted reasons, closed at the end of December. Best guess, and rumour, is that it will re-open as a museum (of what is unclear) after perhaps two years of refurbishment.

Chinese Literature Podcast

It’s the End of the World as We Know It

Rob Moore

Rob Moore and Lee Moore unpack Liu Cixin’s Three-Body Problem

In the first of a new partnership with the Chinese Literature Podcast, brothers from another mother Rob Moore and Lee Moore take a break from Li Bai and Du Fu to look at Liu Cixin’s three-part science fiction epic. First serialized in Science Fiction World in 2008, The Three Body Problem became a global phenomenon when it was published in English translation by Ken Liu and Joel Martinsen. In the podcast, Rob and Lee discuss the main event of the first book (rhymes with ‘vulnerable elocution’) and share student responses, before highlighting the age-old divide between official popular and official literature in China: