ARTICLES
FINDING COMMON GROUND AMONG BITTER ENEMIES
n late August, two dozen Chinese intellectuals met at Oxford University and drew up a statement that's come to be known as the "Oxford Consensus."
WHAT IS THE CHINA DREAM?
In this blogpost for the New York Review of Books, I look at a propaganda barrage around Chinese cities to analyze what the government means by the "China Dream."
LEAVING THE LAND PART 3: PICKING DEATH OVER EVICTION
n the third installment to our series in the NYT on the trials of urbanization in China, we focus on the little-reported phenomenon of farmers committing suicide by setting themselves on fire.
CHINA: WHEN THE CATS RULE
In this blogpost for the New York Review of Books, an adaption of my introduction to Lao She’s 1933 novel “Cat Country,” recently reissued by Penguin.
PENGUIN RE-ISSUES “CAT COUNTRY”
As part of Penguin's efforts to promote Chinese literature, it has re-released several of the great 20th century novelist Lao She's works. One is the dystopian satire Cat Country, for which I wrote the introduction.
LEAVING THE LAND PT 2: PROFILE OF A GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL HEADING RESETTLEMENTS
In the second installment for the New York Timesof my series on urbanization, I profile Li Yongping, an official overseeing the largest peace-time transfer of people in history (or so it seems).
BERLIN’S MOST UNSETTLING MEMORIAL
Germany is filled with memorials to the Holocaust, but for my money the most unsettling is the one created 20 years ago by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock in a formerly Jewish district of Berlin called the Bavarian Quarter.
LEAVING THE LAND, PART 1
This is the first of a multi-part series I've written on urbanization in China, a trend that will decisively change China from a mostly rural country to an urban one.
FAKING IT IN CHINA
I look at an interesting new book on architectural mimicry in China to riff on the culture of copying. A blogpost in the New York Review of Books.
CHINA’S SUFIS: THE SHRINES BEHIND THE DUNES
The New York Review of Books asked me to look at a photo book on Sufi shrines in China's western province of Xinjiang.
CHINA’S ANCIENT LIFELINE
A piece in the May issue of National Geographicon China's Grand Canal. I had the privilege of joining a wonderful family lives on a coal barge, for a ten-day trip down the canal.
STUDIO CITY
My piece in the April 22 New Yorkeron the world’s largest studio lot in the world–Hengdian World Studios–and on the falsification of history in China. Paywall alert.