New on the site:

An interview with Li Zehou, one of modern China’s most towering intellectual figures, published in Southern People Weekly.  Li died earlier this month in Boulder, Colorado at the age of 91.
 
A text by the Tsinghua sociologist Li Qiang on how China’s social structure has changed over the course of the first two decades of the 21st century.
 
An article by a Wuhan University graduate student, Chen Ruiyan, on how difficult it is to build houses in China’s villages.  The article was inspired by a recent murder in Fujian, provoked by a housing dispute.
 
And finally, for our “Youth Concerns” rubric, a text on the topic of sexually suggestive clothing peddled by certain Chinese companies.  This text was translated by Hannah Wang, a student in Guangzhou, who has recently joined our team.  Welcome aboard, Hannah!
 
For readers who are using our site in part for language learning purposes, I would like to mention a Chinese-language podcast I have discovered recently:  故事FM (Story FM).  All of the episodes that I have listened to have been good, but #251 and #521 are excellent.  This is not a “learn to speak Chinese” podcast, but a podcast for Chinese speakers, inspired by This American Life, so it is not easy—but it is worth the effort.

​Enjoy!

New on the site this time:

​Yao Yang on common prosperity, arguing that China should continue to let markets and entrepreneurs work their magic, but that China’s educational system should be reformed to level the playing field.
 
For our Youth Concerns project, Freya Ge and I translated a rousing article by Yu Liang on China’s Little Pinks, in which he connects this incarnation of China’s new nationalism less to patriotic education and more to online fan clubs.
 
Finally, for our Women’s Voices project, Selena Orly and I translated a provocative essay by the feminist activitist Chen Yaya, who argues that China might see its birth rate rise if it made it easier for single mothers to have children.
 
A housekeeping note:  the last time I updated the site, I received a couple of messages from readers who said that Avast had identified certain weblinks as possible “phishing” expeditions.  I contacted Avast, and they replied in effect that “that happens sometimes.”  If it keeps happening, send me a screen shot with the Avast warning and I will forward it to them.  They would like to avoid false positives if possible.