NATHANIEL SCHOSSAU WRITES – A scene in Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated “Barbie” movie, set for release July 21 and starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling, has caused controversy over—of all things!— a territorial dispute in the South China Sea. The reason: Vietnam and China both claim a particular part of…
Tag: China
BOOK REVIEW: VERA WONG’S UNSOLICITED ADVICE FOR MURDERERS (2023) BY JESSE SUTANTO – A WHOLESOME INVESTIGATION OF THE UNCONVENTIONAL
SARAH LOHMANN WRITES — Vera Wong’s days are often uneventful. Despite owning her own business, she finds that her once vibrant neighborhood and community have become monotonous—until a dead man turns up in her teahouse. When the police, however, don’t seem to take it as seriously as she expects, Vera…
BOOK REVIEW: BEIJING SPRAWL (2023) BY XU ZECHEN — ONE MUST IMAGINE THEIR PEOPLE HAPPY
ANGELINE KEK WRITES — Anyone who has lived to tell the tale can testify: life comes at you fast. The same sun rises daily, marking the start of another predicament to put right and another tight spot to escape. Thrown into the throes of life’s unrelenting torrent, how strange is it…
HAS THE INDIVIDUAL FALLEN?
ARMAAN JHANGIANI writes – Societies with law and order, power and stability, and virtues of morality and love have always been epitomized as the peak of human community and self-restraint. While the beginnings of America would encapsulate this, the industrial rise following America’s success in World War II would introduce…
BOOK REVIEW: THE TWO LIFEBLOODS IN ZHANG LING’S WHERE WATERS MEET (2023)
SARAH LOHMANN WRITES — Chunyu’s life flows like water. She fits herself expertly into a shape demanded by her circumstances. In Zhang Ling’s tenth novel, Where Waters Meet (2023), people, especially women, are asked by the often harsh world to take the form of the formless, to fill their allotted…
BOOK REVIEW: SIREN QUEEN (2022) BY NGHI VO — IN THE LAND OF STARLETS AND MONSTERS
GABY RUSLI WRITES— Do you have what it takes to become the next big thing? If so, would you do anything to have your shot at stardom? Translated into English, Siren Queen (2022) by Nghi Vo chronicles Luli Wei – a girl born and raised in a stereotypical traditional Chinese laundromat family in the pre-Code…
SINGAPORE: A VERY ‘VIP’ VOICE FROM ASIA
COLUMNIST TOM PLATE WRITES – Geopolitical commentary can be invaluable, but not all analyses return good payback for your time and attention. The ‘quick-on-the draw’ stuff can lack perspective and flip and flop in the wind; even those drawn from deeper wells can take too long to surface. Then there’s…
CHINA: DOES BEIJING OWE CHINESE WOMEN ONE COLOSSAL APOLOGY?
KYLIE CLIFTON WRITES – It’s not easy to change the course of history. China has been struggling to reverse its long-held one-child policy since 2015, when it announced that families could have two children. Then, in response to falling birth rates, policy was further loosened; in 2021 a Chinese state…
CHINA-US POLICY: IS THE ‘MOON A BALLOON’?
This column originally appeared on February 8, 2023, in the South China Morning Post. DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR TOM PLATE WRITES – Hot air propels not just balloons. Embattled President Joseph Biden and his battle-prone Washington – the American capital more divided, presumably, than that of Chairman Xi Jinping’s Beijing – clashed…
BOOK REVIEW: PORTRAIT OF A THIEF (2022) BY GRACE D. LI – A HEIST OF THE HEART
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – A Harvard senior obsessed with the beautiful, Will Chen is the perfect Chinese son: hardworking, handsome, and respectful. Except when he is offered an illegal job by a mysterious wealthy Chinese benefactor to steal back art pieces from heavily guarded Western museums that…
SPACEY CHINA: LEAVING THE U.S. ORBITING BEHIND?
ABDULLAH ALHAJERI WRITES – “We too will make satellites.” These are the words of the ever-ambitious Mao Zedong, late leader of the Republic of China — words that have since reigned true. Zedong had dreams of making China the powerhouse of not only Asia but the world. How positively spacey…
BOOK REVIEW: COUNTERFEIT (2022) BY KIRSTEN CHEN – HOUSEWIFE TURNS CRIMINAL MASTERMIND
BOOK REVIEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF ELLA KELLEHER WRITES – Kirsten Chen’s latest novel, Counterfeit (2022), follows Ava Wong – a straight-edge Chinese-American lawyer shackled to an agonizingly mundane routine of house chores and taking care of her maddening infant, Henri, who cannot seem to cease his daily tantrums. Married to a successful yet always…
CHINA’S POPULATION POLICY: CHILD’S PLAY OR MISTAKEN VISION?
RACHEL KAUFMAN WRITES – It has been seven years since China’s one-child policy was officially revoked. For so many of us in the west, this seems like light years ago; but this unique policy and stunning experiment in grandiose social engineering will be impacting Chinese society for generations. What can…
ENDING THE WAR: BUT IS BEIJING UP TO THE HISTORIC CHALLENGE?
ASIA MEDIA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDER TOM PLATE WRITES — In global diplomatic circles, what is not uttered publicly can reveal more than that which is out in the open. Perhaps no one captured this with more spice and sauce than Charles Maurice De Talleyrand-Périgord, the acknowledged French maestro of European diplomacy…
CHINA: THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR HEATS UP ON SOCIAL MEDIA
ARYANA KHALILZADEH WRITES-Social media has become a source of information, misinformation, and conspiracy theories on topics such as the pandemic, U.S. elections, and global insurrections. As Russia launched its full-scale military invasion in Ukraine, social media became flooded with various posts in the form of memes, photos, news, and heated…
ASIA: WEATHERING THE COVID STORM
HAMAD ALSEBEIH WRITES — The Asian continent has long had some of the world’s fastest growing regional economies despite severe socio-economic problems and infrastructural barriers. A large part of this economic progress has been linked to simultaneous developments in productivity, exports, and capital expenditure. As Europe and America continue to…