“Let’s try again,” Ah Hua says softly, “let me try this time.” So I lay down, close my eyes a little and use my imagination to try and get my blood flowing. Before, whenever I’ve run into this problem I usually just close my eyes and think about some colleague ...

  Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Yang Hengjun Chinese blogger at the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum in Bonn in discussion with Günter Nooke, who believes social networks are “daunting and dangerous” for authorities in Beijing.     “Every blogger is a modern-day Tiananm...

From Red Guards to Cyber-vigilantism to where next? Ｂｙ　ｒｅｂｅｃｃａ　 This is a 1976 Cultural Revolution poster from chineseposters.net. It celebrates Chairman Mao’s 1966 call to arms: “bombard the headquarters.” He egged on the Red Guards to go after corrupt and venal off...

Let me tell you about my experience. From when I was very young, I wanted to be a writer. One can say that was my dream. Everybody knew that it was an unbounded glory to be a writer. All the people in China had given their bodies and souls to the Party and Chairman Mao. Old Mao also used his litt...

[in translation] One chance encounter is a coincidence.  Two chance encounters is no longer coincidental.  Within just over one month’s time, I met the founder and the Chinese-language editor of Global Voices Online in two separate chance encounters, which made me look at that website with ...

On the way as Tian Haipeng drives me home, I don’t feel like saying a word. As we squeeze through traffic, just before we reach Huiqiao New City, I suddenly change my mind: “turn the car around. Take me back to my parents’ place, on the south side of the Pearl River.” He g...

I get off the plane at Chek Lap Kok international airport in Hong Kong, pass through customs, and have to wait about ten minutes before I can pick up my suitcase. I place it carefully on a cart and open the combination; I can see from the markers I set that it was searched by agents back in Ameri...

The four years we were in college, Liu Mingwei was elected class president two years in a row. That was at Peking University, a campus that already values democracy, and with us in politics, always so secretly envious of the Western ‘get someone better in there to take a stab at it,’ ...

Back when I was in New York studying at Columbia, I used all Sundays and public holidays to go around nearly every street in the city. It’s the best way to get to know a city, and of course you also get your money’s worth. Since then, whether it was when I went back to Beijing or off ...

Maintaining my composure, I say goodbye to Director Zhou and try my best to walk like people in lobbies of five-star hotels do, holding my head high as I move towards the hotel front door. As I pass through the hotel’s majestic pillars, I see a reflection of Director Zhou, still standing in...