Tag Archives: China

Chinese Propaganda vs US Propaganda

By David Xia | Published: July 3, 2010
China's Xinhua News Agency started a 24-hour English-language news channel and is about to open a new office in New York City, according to the Times. The Times is once again critical of China. And they should be. China ranks 168th out of 175 countries in the 2009 Press Freedom Index, a survey compiled by Reporters Without Borders. What I don't like about the Times article is its prejudicial sense of nationalism and simplistic view of East vs West. The Times inflated the article by making it sound as if Xinhua Red Guards wielding hammers and sickles are about to kick down the sacred doors of Western media companies.

Read More »

Posted in Books, China, Current Events, New York City, journalism | 1 Comment

Now’s Not the Time to Stop Spending!

By David Xia | Published: July 1, 2010
Several days ago, I suggested that the current flurry of national and US state governments concerned about budget deficits and reining back spending was a good idea. Two big-shot economists, Princeton professor Paul Krugman and former IMF chief economist Simon Johnson, disagree.

Read More »

Posted in China, Current Events | Leave a comment

Chinese Government Blocked Me, France Too

By David Xia | Published: June 30, 2010
A friend sent my ever-useful Cantonese pick-up lines post to his cousin in Beijing. Unfortunately, his cousin cannot view it. Damn firewall of China! To make sure it was blocked instead of an outdated browser problem I checked for myself. Sure enough, this blog's restricted in China.

Read More »

Posted in China, Technology | 1 Comment

My Uncle’s Sleeping With His Boss

By David Xia | Published: June 11, 2010
One of my uncles is a director for a Hong Kong-based fuse manufacturing firm. The CEO, a short, 66-year-old man from Hong Kong, is a demanding boss. Working for him is like being on-call as a military triage surgeon in Helmand, Afghanistan. He often sleeps in till noon, comes home at 9pm, and receives a call from the CEO shortly thereafter asking him to come play mahjong or drink tea. This means my uncle will be gone until 1 or 2am. Sometimes he doesn't come home for dinner at all. He'll go to sleep late and do it again the next day.

Read More »

Posted in China, Comedy | Leave a comment

Joules of Wealth

By David Xia | Published: September 22, 2009
During the fall harvest in Fujianm, China, sweet potatoes slices, basking in the noonday sun, blanket entire hillsides.

Read More »

Posted in China | 2 Comments

Five Reasons Why You Should Visit Xiamen

By David Xia | Published: August 24, 2009
Located in China’s Fujian province across the strait from Taiwan, Xiamen is a bustling coastal city offering all the usual amenities for travelers with Western sensibilities as well as a rich plethora of traditional Chinese culture and customs.


Read More »

Posted in China, Travel | Leave a comment

Why I Wouldn’t Live in Hong Kong

By David Xia | Published: August 14, 2009
"For creature comforts, Hong Kong is unsurpassed, but Hong Kong is culturally barren. Living there is something like living inside a cash register."

Read More »

Posted in China, Travel | Leave a comment

Megamalls and Clumsy Change

By David Xia | Published: June 22, 2009

When I left NYC there was no evidence that the Sun exists. When I landed in HK, there was still none. The first ten days of my stay were filled with cumulonimbus clouds and grape-sized rain droplets. Stepping outside is like entering a sauna or breathing with a hot wet rag smothering your face. The CEOs here are taking three to four showers a day to gain short-lived relief from all the humidity-induced stickiness. Some brief musings about HK:

  1. HK (and China for that matter) is not ethnically diverse compared to NYC. The city’s 95% Chinese.
  2. There are so many mega-malls that look exactly alike. Armies of cleaning staff ensure they are all freakishly clean.

Read More »

Posted in China, Travel | Leave a comment

Jedi Druglords

By David Xia | Published: May 28, 2009
Everyone knows China is the treasure trove of bootlegged movies, but few people realize the hidden gems within these bootlegged DVDs.

Read More »

Posted in China, TV & movies | Leave a comment

Go Ahead, Feed the Fish

By David Xia | Published: May 28, 2009

According to the Chinese lunar calendar, today is Duanwujie (端午節), or the Dragon Boat Festival. Celebrating this holiday includes eating zongzi (粽子), glutinous rice wrapped and cooked in bamboo leaves, racing dragon boats, and drinking realgar wine. I've never drank this wine before. Realgar is an arsenic sulfide mineral, the wine has the mineral mixed into it, and I'm pretty sure it would taste nasty.


Read More »

Posted in China, holidays | Comments closed

“Life Will Get Better and Better”

By David Xia | Published: May 17, 2009

Zhang Yimou's To Live (1994) makes no attempt to romanticize the past. The film tells the incredible journey of a Chinese family from horrific civil war in the 1940s to the tragic mistakes of the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s. It tells this story matter-of-factly without unneeded garnish and allows the main couple, Jiazhen (played by Gong Li) and Fugui (the talented Ge Yo), to display for themselves the depths of human emotion and spirit.


Read More »

Posted in China, TV & movies | Leave a comment