China’s exam-oriented culture fails to foster imagination, which is necessary to create better employees and better people.
Author: Laura Lin
After the topic of bulk sanitary napkins went viral online, the broader issue of the gap between rich and poor has come out of the shadows across the communist nation, including the availability of laptops for students.
Chinese officials are realizing that the ‘soul’ of a city is key to strength and prosperity.
The COVID-19 propaganda war in and around China now includes a familiar face: There’s only one Jackie! The martial arts movie legend, who is a native of Hong Kong, has long since evolved into a fervent supporter and spokesman for the Communist regime on the mainland. Now critics of Beijing, both inside China as well […]
As a Taiwanese, even one who has lived abroad for years, her instinct is to distrust the Chinese regime. Others chose to ignore all the warnings.
Authorities in China and Taiwan are worried that gatherings at cemeteries for the customary holiday to honor ancestors could spark another outbreak.
In the Chinese city where coronavirus first appeared, the death toll may be much higher than official numbers. Ugly truths are now appearing as survivors wait in line to pick up remains of loved ones.
Determining how many people really died in the Chinese city where COVID-19 began may help to understand what the toll will be elsewhere. But are authorities telling the truth?
As Carrefour gets ready to sell a majority of its operations in China, lessons can be learned from the history of the French retail giant’s choices over the years.
The National Radio and Television Administration has issued a ban on historic melodrama in time for the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. A billion-dollar industry is turned upside down.
-OpEd- TAIPEI — It was back on May 24, 2017 that Taiwan’s Constitutional Court ruled that the constitutional right to equality and freedom of marriage also takes into account same-sex couples. Yet it took two years until the moment earlier this month — after layers of difficulties, including three homophobic referenda led by conservative and […]
–Analysis– TOKYO — On May 1, Crown Prince Naruhito will succeed his father, Emperor Akihito, to become the 126th Japanese emperor. The April 1 announcement of the new imperial era’s name, Reiwa, means Japan’s history is turning a new page. Born in 1960 as the eldest son of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko, Crown Prince […]
Three years after the end of the one-child policy, China’s fertility rates are now falling. To have, or not have, children ought to be built on personal and family wishes, something the government still hasn’t understood.
Facing severe social competition, China’s youngsters are under increasing academic pressure. Can a new government policy help ease their load?
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Jan. 2 speech addressing “reunification” with Taiwan has done what no political leader on the island nation has managed recently: set off a wave of unity among the Taiwanese people. Xi had apparently seen an opportunity to exploit November’s huge setbacks for the pro-independence governing party in Taiwan’s local elections. The […]
Japan’s Senate passed a reform bill in June modifying the regulation of the workplace, and promoting new ways for employees to work. But things were already changing.
BEIJING — The exhibition was called “Secret,” and opened in the Wuhan Art Museum in April. And what was in the show? The personal information of the 346,000 citizens of the central Chinese city of Wuhan that the artist Deng Yufeng had bought on the black market. Previously treated with a special chemical, certain parts […]
-Analysis- BEIJING — The “invisible poor” has become a new online — and ironic — moniker in China. It describes young people who earn more than 10,000 RMB ($1,570) a month, a considerable income for most Chinese, but who are also big spenders. They wear $500 suits, get regular facials, drink top-class Chilean wine, and […]
TOKYO — Chinese boys and girls are often referred to as “Little emperor” or “Little princess.” They grow up in surroundings with financial means where six adults are catering to their demands: they are the luckiest generation since the founding of modern China. Yet few of them realize that there is an even luckier bunch […]
BEIJING — An online game from Japan has become a hopping success in China. Unheard of until recently, Tabikaeru: Travel Frog — developed by the Japanese company Hit-Point — is suddenly all the rage, leapfrogging the competition to become the most popular free online game in China’s Apple App Store. Travel Frog requires little of […]
A chilly bit of ‘wealth flaunting’ in time for the Chinese New Year.
-Analysis- BEIJING — Two weeks ago, a preschool in Shanghai was exposed for abusing toddlers. One young child was brutally thrown around the floor, while another was forced to eat spicy mustard. Then, last week, a kindergarten in Beijing run by the Red, Yellow and Blue (RYB) Education company, was found to have been injecting […]
Chinese tourist agencies will be severely punished for organizing tour groups to St. Peter’s Square and the Sistine Chapel (as well as the tiny Pacific island of Palau). The reason? Taiwan
A recent series of documentaries unveil untold chapters of ugly Japanese history.
Bling and style are barriers that the Chinese-owned, Swedish-based company may not be able to overcome.
-OpEd- BEIJING — Many Chinese films are awful. Who is to blame for this objective fact? An audience typically praises a film when they think it’s good and complain when it isn’t. Yet Feng Xiaogang, a famous Chinese film director, was lambasted at the recent Shanghai Films Festival for the following statement: “The reason why […]
BEIJING — Dream or nightmare? Chinese moviegoers will now see for themselves. Starting July 1, the anniversary the Chinese Communist Party, and through its 19th national congress in the fall, all Chinese cinemas are obliged by the government to show a propaganda film,The Glory and the Dream — Our Chinese Dream. The short video is […]
TOKYO — The popular Chinese imagination of Japan has followed along with Japan’s evolution over the past four decades. In the late 1970s, when China started to reform and to open up to the rest of the world, Japan was Asia’s economic power. Then, following the arrival of Japanese animé to China, Japan was the […]
BEIJING — Two events this spring, seemingly unrelated, together offer a snapshot of where China has arrived in finance-related technology, commonly referred to as “fintech.” On April 17, the Bank of Communications, one of the largest Chinese banks, launched a new “mobile credit card” product, making it the first bank to make a credit card’s […]
A decades-old argument might just have been settled: Modern “mixed martial arts’ fighter vs. Tai Chi master — who wins?” In a recently filmed fight, Xu Xiaodong, a Beijing-based mixed martial arts freestyle coach, duked it out with Wei Lei, a famous Tai Chi master from Sichuan. It took less than 20 seconds for Xu […]
BEIJING — At the just concluded Beijing International Film Festival, the hottest feature on the bill was the business battle between Chinese and American film industries. The Fate of the Furious, a Hollywood blockbuster, has grossed 2.35 billion RMB ($340 million) since its release two weeks ago in China, and it is projected to become […]
BEIJING — For rich and single Chinese women who want it all, America is there to help. The Beijing-based website Tencent Finance reports that U.S. fertility clinics are increasingly catering to single Chinese women who want to have a child on their own. Annie Liu, a successful high-end real estate dealer in New York, saw […]
China eased its controversial one-child policy in late 2015. But there are still plenty of people, for one reason or another, who can’t have children and could benefit from surrogate woman willing to carry the pregnancy.
BEIJING — It’s been more than a year since China abolished the one-child policy ntroduced in 1979 to control the population. The politburo came up with a new two-child policy and simplified the government-approval process for couples seeking assisted reproductive treatment. The shift prompted older couples to use frozen semen and eggs, and test-tube babies. […]
-OpEd- TOKYO — On Dec. 2, Japan’s lawmakers voted for a bill that permits casinos. The aim of the legislation was to boost tourism and revitalize the economy. Gambling has been strictly prohibited in Japan ever since Empress Jito in the Seventh Century banned playing games for money. Japanese envoys learned gambling from China. They […]
-OpEd- KALAMAZOO — People from China who travel abroad are struck by the stark differences between their countries. In the U.S. and Europe, they probably envy how people live in comfort and are rich enough to engage in arts and public service. These countries in general have more honest and transparent governments, as well as […]
BEIJING — If you’ve ever had trouble ordering at Starbucks, just know you probably have plenty of company: millions of Chinese coffee lovers. When one customer recently posted an open letter online to the chief executive of Starbucks in China to complain about the way the American coffee chain calls its different size cups, the […]