Enduring COVID restrictions are the final straw for many expats in Hong Kong. They’re leaving by the thousands, threatening the city’s reputation as a financial hub.
Author: Lisa LANE
The “Made in Japan” label used to be a mark of progress, but Japanese manufacturing has declined rapidly. Now, the automobile industry, the last bastion of the country’s technology, has fallen behind in the transition to electric vehicles.
A recent video of a chained woman has raised the alarm of the poor treatment of the mentally ill in China. It’s worse for women in rural areas, where the stigma around mental illness is high.
As China grapples with an aging population and falling fertility rate, the government has tried different measures to encourage people to have children. But the suggestion by one of the country’s top economists to print money to kickstart a baby boom did not go down well with the Chinese public — raising children isn’t just a question of money.
Japan’s new prime minister is facing the twin challenges of COVID-19 and regional tensions, and some wonder whether he can even last as long as his predecessor, who was forced out after barely one year.
Originating in Taiwan, bubble tea was one of many products hard hit by the pandemic. But the internationally-beloved, tapioca-based drink isn’t just any import any longer — it’s an entire culture.
The so-called “White Elephants,” or massive building projects that go unused, keep going up across China as local officials mix vanity and a misdirected attempt to attract business and tourists. A perfect example the 58-meter, $230 million statue of Guan Yu, a beloved military figure from the Third Century, that nobody seems interested in visiting.
The CCP is not used to sharing the decision-making role with the public, but that may be exactly what all sides need to try to encourage more Chinese people to have babies.
Though Beijing is not likely to launch any overt operation right away, experts predict it’s most likely to try to force Taiwan’s reunification between 2025 and 2030. This would almost certainly prompt a U.S. response.
With infections surging, and only 1% of the population fully vaccinated, many say that devoting so many resources to hosting the Summer Games is a recipe for disaster.
As a growing number of people pack up and leave the former British colony, the question arises: What to do about the family dog?
BEIJING — Menglin’s boyfriend accompanied her to the clinic. It took less than 10 minutes for the doctor to place the contraceptive implant in Menglin’s upper left arm. It’s now very unlikely she’ll get pregnant in the next three years. She is 31, a good age to give birth, but she is reluctant to start […]
What’s an enterprising idea born out of lockdown? Get paid to take online courses for other people, as no teacher can actually see who is taking their course.
Registering facial recognition data with a biometric authentication application is all the rage in China, but it comes with major privacy concerns.
The city-state’s leadership has never tolerated too much political dissent; and now when it comes in the Facebook variety, officials are using the courts to silence critics.
Authorities have decided to start cracking down on popular web programs featuring pretty vloggers with seemingly limitless stomachs. But are they really such a bad influence?
HONG KONG — Ten old college classmates had rented a room in a five-star hotel. There was plenty of laughing and joking and memories, but a sad feeling somehow lingered. The reunion was really a farewell party. In two weeks’ time, Apple and her family of three will move to London. Tianxin and her husband […]
The pandemic has taken a huge toll on the Chinese film industry. But it’s the movie houses themselves that have suffered most.
-Analysis- BEIJING — How many disabled people are there in China? The number is 85 million, or 6% of China’s total population, according to the statistics of the Chinese Disabled Persons’ Federation. Yet rarely do we see any of them in China’s major cities. So where are they? Recently, a video from the southwestern city […]
From hospital beds in Mali to ventilators in Algeria to an airlift of supplies deliver by Ethiopian Airlines, China has used the pandemic to cement its economic footprint across the African continent. As socio-economics researcher Hicham Rouibah told Le Monde, “Chinese companies have seized the opportunity of COVID-19 to try to restore their image tarnished […]
HONG KONG — The Beijing authorities have finally decided to set aside the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) Government and its Legislative Council and instead craft themselves a national security law for the former British colony. According to Wang Chen, deputy chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the Chinese government’s rubber stamp agency, […]
A mix of love and hate mirrors their own feelings about Beijing.
Taiwan’s success in containing the coronavirus is certainly cause for celebration, and to really emphasize the point, farmers in one agricultural region decided this week that it’s high time to break out the… watermelons? After a string of six straight days with no new confirmed coronavirus cases, a group of farmers in Changhua, in central […]
The coronavirus pandemic has been both a boost and a challenge for delivery services like Chowbus, which specialize in Chinese fare.
Japan’s notorious yakuza — “gangsters’ — have displayed (in addition to their trademark tattoos) a peculiar sense of civic duty in the face of past natural disasters, having donated money to victims of the Kobe earthquake in 1995 and the 2011 Fukushima tsunami. Now, Japanese news site News Postseven reports that yakuza bosses are publicly […]
The Japanese archipelago Okinawa is both a popular travel destination and home to the highest ratio of very old people. That makes it particularly vulnerable to coronavirus.
Taiwan has once again upgraded its so-called Name-Based Mask Distribution System.
NEW TAIPEI CITY — The Catholic priest, Father Giovanni Rizzi of the Camillians religious order, has been well known in Taiwan for his decades of work helping to set up hospitals on the island nation. But in recent days, Rizzi humbly asked for some help in return: for contributions to purchase face masks for hospitals […]
BEIJING — On March 14th, Zhang Yuqing, a Chinese student studying in Chicago, finally made his way back home to Beijing. He had prepared ten N95 masks and a hand sanitizer for the trip that involved several airport connections and dozens of hours of travelling. As a volunteer of the “Million Masks North America Support […]
Traditional ideas about marriage still hold some sway among the Chinese, but more and more, couples are finally giving love a chance.
Loneliness, sex and economics rule among aging singles in the Chinese capital.
A Chinese dog meat festival has generated outrage in France. The controversy is a complex dance between animal rights, racism and consumer hypocrisy.
Adults have a lot of leeway when it comes to raising kids. But that doesn’t mean their power should be absolute — parents don’t, after all, have ownership of their children.
SEOUL — A recently retired senior manager from South Korean electronics giant Samsung is back to work — in China. Referred to just by his last name, Kim, had been executive director responsible for electronic chip design (D-RAM) at the Seoul-based multinational. But just before he was set to begin his senior position at the […]
The referenda that rejected marriage equality in Taiwan last month was not only a huge blow to the country’s LGBT community, but also a political setback to the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Two years ago, It was the DPP that had originally taken to Parliament the proposed amendment of Taiwan’s Civil Code to allow […]
BEIJING — These days, it is not rare to bump into blond, slim, pretty teenage girls on the streets of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The majority of them, typically between 16 and 22 years old, come from Eastern Europe and are working temporarily as models in China. The pace picks up in the late summer […]
BEIJING — Fan Bingbing, China“s highest-paid actress and star of the 2014 blockbuster X-Men, recently received some unwanted public attention—an accusation of tax evasion. The Chinese actress was accused by Cui Yongyuan, a TV presenter and producer, of signing “Yin-Yang contracts’ for the films she stars in. This allows her to pay lower tax via […]
Chairs have been removed from the cafeteria in a high school in Henan Province. The reason: save more time for studying…
BEIJING — It’s that time of a year again when an ever growing number of Chinese students are leaving to study abroad. These young people attract a lot of attention, often envied by their peers around them. Labeled as the “Fu-er-dai”, meaning “the second-generation rich brats,” some live a “luxurious and decadent life” overseas, while […]
BEIJING — Yang Ke works for a high-tech company in Shenzhen on the southeast coast of China. Thanks to a few years spent abroad, he has saved up a considerable amount of money and is looking to invest it in foreign real estate. After intensive discussions with real estate agents, he decided that property in […]