Essays

No More Hiding

Jennifer Duann Fultz

A Chinese New Year’s lesson on embracing your identity – Jennifer Duann Fultz

You would think it would be hard to forget that I’m not white. I’m a Chinese-American woman, born, raised and educated in the Midwest. I was one of maybe a dozen Asian students in my high school graduating class of 400. I didn’t have a single Asian(-American) teacher until I was in college, and then they were all Chinese language instructors. My Master of Education program had exactly three students of color and I was, of course, the only Asian.

Little Red Podcast

Bitter Medicine: China’s New Pacific Frontier

Louisa Lim

Is China the new imperial power in Papua New Guinea? – Louisa Lim

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In shops across Papua New Guinea, Chinese shop-owners perched on high chairs watch over local shoppers to guard against theft, checking their bags before they are permitted to leave the premises. This striking act of physical dominance is symbolic of the distance between Chinese migrants and locals, according to journalist Jo Chandler, who has reported extensively from the Pacific nation: “There’s a real separateness about Chinese enterprise which is above and removed from this population.” The complicated tensions unleashed by Beijing’s growing role in the Pacific are pitting political elites against ordinary people, with sporadic explosions of violence targeting Chinese communities.

Chinese Corner

Love You to Death and Back

Liz Carter

How to Romance in Mandarin – Liz Carter

Love is in the air, or at least all over social media and the candy aisles of your local convenience store. Valentine’s Day is occasion for many a confession of love or vow of faithfulness, including in most of the Mandarin-speaking world. So how do you woo in Mandarin?

The answer is, in much the same cliché way as in English. You can fall in love at first sight (yí jiàn zhōng qíng 一见钟情) or come to love someone over time (rì jǐu shēng qíng 日久生情). You can love for someone for the rest of your life (yī shēng yī shì 一生一世) or even to death and back (sǐ qù huó lái 死去活来).

Reviews

Off the Plateau

Lowell Cook

Lowell Cook reviews Old Demons, New Deities

The world of Tibetan literature just got a little bigger. A collection of twenty-one contemporary Tibetan short stories edited by Tenzin Dickie, wonderfully titled Old Demons, New Deities, was published by OR Books in December. The collection brings together some of the best fiction from the Tibetan world, featuring authors from both inside and outside Tibet. For many readers, Tibet means “Free Tibet” bumper stickers and Shangrila fantasies, but these stories evoke a different vision. They offer us windows into the lived experiences of ordinary Tibetans today, capturing the joys and sorrows of modern Tibet as it grapples with both the old demons of tradition and the new deities of modernity.

Essays

The Thrill of a Stranger

Kassy Lee

Kassy Lee unpicks Xiao Shui’s poetry in Stories from Bohai Sea

In the West, we’re taught that Chinese people value their family and their familial relationships above all else. Confucian values are supposed to impose order on society: son obeys father, wife obeys husband, and everyone obeys the emperor. Unlike the individualism of the West, Chinese society is built on filial piety, or so the story goes. After years of social upheaval, however, how are Chinese families coming to terms with domestic migration? One answer can be found in the work of contemporary poet Xiao Shui.