Two articles in the People’s Daily reveal, once again, the anxieties of maintaining "Chinese culture" in a globalized context.  The first, a front-pager in today’s Overseas Edition, compares China’s "culture industry" to that dominating producer of "American culture:"… Continue reading

    The China Daily runs a story and an opinion piece today on the relatively low levels of philanthropic giving in China.  In an odd sort of way, the opinion piece tries to argue that there is a grounding… Continue reading

     "The final inevitable major trend is that China’s peaceful rise will, in the process of intersection with world civilizations, bring about the great rejuvenation of Chinese civilization on the basis of socialism."      –  Zheng Bijian, director-general… Continue reading

    There are a couple of stories in this week’s Beijing Review that deal with the care of elderly people in China.  The first thing that struck me was the honest engagement with the problem: Beijing Review is a… Continue reading

    There’s a good series of posts over at Slate this week centering on higher education.  Several of the pieces engage the question of what a liberal arts education ought to be.  Since I teach at a liberal arts… Continue reading

    A secret prison has been discovered in Baghdad, apparently run by one of the Iraqi militias, where detainees have been brutally abused: Iraq’s government said today that it had ordered an urgent investigation of accusations that 173 detainees… Continue reading

    I know this topic, or something like it, keeps popping up here, but that’s because it keeps popping up in the Chinese media.  Here we have yet another front page People’s Daily (Overseas Edition) article on creating a… Continue reading

    A piece from last Saturday’s NYT outlines the injustices rife within the Chinese legal system.  In referring to Mr. Xie Yujun’s struggle to defend his son, the money quote: But Mr. Xie’s plaintive cry poses a fundamental question… Continue reading

     No sooner did I finish the previous post, when I discovered this China Daily article on dating in Chongqing, with a mention of Shanghai and Beijing thrown in for good measure.   Seems its just as hard for twenty-somethings… Continue reading