On Earth as it is in Heaven

My grandmother passed away last month in Shenyang. She was 92. Her health had been deteriorating steadily for the last five years, and as far as deaths go, hers was a peaceful one. All her loved ones managed to visit her in her last month of consciousness, and she passed away in her sleep –…

Saving Face

One of the things you hear the most about China is that people are obsessed with “face”. I’ve always thought this was a bit Orientalist, since it suggests that we (i.e. Chinese) are only concerned with superficial things. But sometimes, “face”, understood a strange intangible honour system, shows up in unexpected places in China. There…

Yellow Skin, White Masks.

I stood in the piazza, surrounded by tinkling espresso cups and beer glasses. This wasn’t Europe – this was Tianjin, a city near Beijing where I was visiting my aunt and uncle. This was “Italian style town”, an area of in the old Italian quarter of the city.[1] “Italian style” was a bit of a…

The Great Firewall and the Political Power of Porn

“But how will you do research?” This was one of the most common questions I got before going to Beijing. Research in a think-tank requires having access to a large range of sources, much of it political. Yet a lot of popular sources remain blocked in China by the Great Firewall – Google, the BBC,…

Scan me

I’m writing this post from a former NATO air force base near Rome – academic conferences tend to coincidentally be held at pleasant places. Because of this conference, my first stint in Beijing only lasted 5 days. I’ll be back for the next two months once this conference is over. Because of the short period…

Both in and not

First, some background. This is a blog about my summer internship at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center at Beijing. Obviously, it’s going to be about a lot more than just my work. As a Hong Kong-er, everything about Mainland China is clouded by a shroud that is a healthy mixture of (sometimes warranted) resentment and (sometimes unfounded)…