7/24/2008

What We're Reading Today


There are a few themes we've been tracking lately at China Beat, including growing Chinese nationalism, middle class protest, and India-China comparisons. Here are a few stories we've noticed around the web this week that address some of these issues:

1. For a thoughtful take on the fenqing phenomenon, check out Evan Osnos's recent New Yorker piece, "Angry Youth: The New Generation's Neocon Nationalists."

2. Financial Times ran a recent piece on the efforts to stop construction of a nuclear power station in Rushan (southeast of Beijing)--see "China Pressure Groups Learn to Tread Carefully."

3. Earlier this week, Danwei.org ran an excerpt from the book Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China by Pallavi Aiyar. The excerpt considers the differences between development in China and India.

4. In May, we ran a piece by Steve Smith on disaster rumors in the wake of the Sichuan earthquake. In the weeks to follow, some Chinese began to speculate that the cute little Olympic mascots, the fuwa (the Friendlies), were actually harbingers of doom, each one predicting an Olympic year debacle. Today, Shanghaiist reports that their own creator has disowned the fuwas. Look here for the piece, along with links to spoofs on the fuwa and further explanation of their role as harbingers of the apolocalypse.

5. And, for a little lighter reading for those of you carefully packing and repacking your Beijing Olympic wardrobes, check out this Sartorialist-inspired blog of Beijing street-style, Stylites in Beijing.

1 comment:

Anon said...

1. Just a few years back it was popular among China hands to say Chinese people's nationalism was just "skin deep", but now it is fashionable to be worried about China's "neocon nationalists". How time changes. Did China's nationalism change? There has of course been changes, but personally I don't think the change has been great. So it must be either that China watchers' understanding of China have matured, or that it has remained as "skin deep" as ever.

2. The nationalism in the US surged after 911, but somehow it has been rarely dubbed "nationalism", only "patriotism".