Delicious spam
I got an e-mail from Online Colleges. It seems to be a semi-scam site that offers to connect you to on-line colleges without actually, from what I can tell, pro...
Author: Alan Baumler
Hoping for charity, without getting faith involved
The New Republic has an article by Gordon Chang on the lack of philanthropy among China’s rich. As he points out, one of the things blocking the emergence...
Some stuff
Proper prayer technique China in Africa China Cliches Victor Mair has a great post at Language log on the question of “Is Q a Chinese character” Or...
It's a man's life
From Gawker a set of military recruitment ads from around the world. Representing East Asia we have Taiwanese who gain skills while defending 20 million people ...
Tears and sincerity
A while back I was wondering why people in classical Chinese texts seemed to cry so much. Was being able to shed tears on demand something that people were supp...
Restoring China's past glory
Via CDT a report on gated communities for the poor outside Beijing. In theory the purpose is to protect residents from crime, but of course the main goal is to ...
Private views of Chinese history
Recently I went to the Jianchuan museums, which are in Anren, just outside Chengdu. It is an interesting place first because it is huge, financed by mogul Fan J...
May Fourth
Did you know that May 4th is Star Wars Day? Yet another example of how history piles up.
Donald McGill looks at China
As readers of Orwell know, the British of the interwar period were fond of buying comic and risque postcards while on seaside vacations, and Donald McGill was t...
Knitting with steel
NYT reports (via CDT) that China is offering to help California build a high-speed rail network. The Times’ take is that the worm has certainly turned if ...
Famous bloggers
I have been remiss in pointing out that you should all go see how famous our 弟妹 blog on Japan is getting to be Or at least how one of its bloggers is moving int...
Spring is here
A beautiful Spring day. What could be better on a day like this than grading papers? Cubs lost the opener 16-5. Spring really is here
Revolution in pictures
Here, from Stapleton’s Civilizing Chengdu is Yang Wei, Chinese Revolutionary, in prison, November 25, 1911. Below is a picture of Yang as superintendent o...
In hot water
Some of you may know that Old China Hand James Fallows has a bit of a bee in his bonnet about frogs. Specifically he has been waging war against the common trop...