This is Ming Ming's second abortion. She arrived at the Sichuan Province Mother-Child Clinic in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, at 8 am. After squirming through the crowd of girls surrounding the nurses and making her appointment, she sat down with 13 other young...
'Tis the time for transitions and reflections in China these days. Next week, infamous photos of the "June 4th Incident" will emerge from the heap of glowing statistics that China shovels onto the world stage day in and day out. Old Deng will drift in from...
China finds itself once again in a tight spot vis-à-vis her "proxies." North Korea has rarely left the spotlight after being enshrined in the Bush Administration's Hall of Evil, but China has avoided any direct accusations flowing from the West...
While the US ruminates over North Korea’s chest thumping and posturing, China has already turned away from the mess on the peninsula and is sidling up next to its new buddy in the world, Russia. Presidents Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin met this week and shook...
There is a palpable grumpiness surrounding businessmen and foreigners here in Chengdu. Business is bad, there is no work for expats, travel is restricted and worst of all: the netbars have closed. For the common Sichuanese, the loss of Internet access, the roadblocks...
General Zhu of the Chinese Air Force is from Canton, but today he is sitting in tiny little Xinjin city, just south of Chengdu, hosting a small banquet of friends and family. Two majors are concentrating hard on providing the General with choice morsels and keeping...
A while back I wrote a column about cheating and getting ahead in Chinese Universities – I received a torrent of emails demanding how I could brand an entire nation as a nest of liars and cheats. An article this year in the Asia Times by Gary LaMoshi addressed...
It all started when the Peace Corps quietly slipped out of China two weeks ago. There was a small, muted gathering at the local watering hole in Chengdu, and then they were gone, SARS being the culprit. Chengdu is a focal point for the Peace Corps in southwest China,...
Chinese coverage of the war in Iraq has been constant, repetitive and decidedly pro-peace if not anti-American. CCTV has developed into a network capable of broadcasting news from everywhere with the authority of CNN. In fact, like most news networks across the globe,...
The story of a woman on the morning of a war/ Tell me if you could exactly what we're fighting for – The Red Hot Chili Peppers This morning I woke up real early and practiced my minimal wu shu. It promised to be a beautiful day – the urban rooster gang was...
