Good for NYC, Bad for Beijing

Filmmaker Zhu Rikun is homeless. Not literally, but in a philosophical way. “I still continue my job as a filmmaker,” he says. “I just feel homeless. I don’t feel any home anywhere, in China or the United States.” Good for NYC, bad for Beijing: Beijing Indy film festival opening this month in NYC. @AngShah reports, […]

Gene Luen Yang on Relying on Stories, Creating Boxers & Saints

It’s not that the concept of Gene Luen Yang’s Boxers & Saints is complex: two volumes tell the story of the Boxer Rebellion from two perspectives. But within this simple structure, Yang’s graphic novels build a compelling story around a war of identity, set 100 years ago in China. It combines mysticism with the very […]

Publication Day for Chinese Characters

Today is publication day for Chinese Characters! The first shipments via Amazon have reached readers and the book is now easily available to anyone. We’ve got a lot going on, including East (New York City) and West (Los Angeles) Coast book launches and talks and seminars in China, Boston, Philadelphia and around Southern California. Please do […]

Ordinary Chinese in extraordinary times

Eye on China interview with Angilee Shah (11:58) From Radio Taiwan International on August 30, 2012: How are ordinary Chinese dealing with the dramatic changes in their country? That’s what the new book Chinese Characters: Profiles of Fast-Changing Lives in a Fast-Changing Land unveils. Tune into Eye on China as Natalie Tso talks with the […]

Part 2 of my interview with Rob Schmitz

In the Los Angeles Review of Books: In part 2 of this interview, Rob Schmitz talks more about factory workers in China, the vast system of netting installed at factory dormitories to cut back on worker suicides, the problems with and opportunities for doing responsible journalism in China, and his book recommendations. Listen here.

Part 1 of my interview with Rob Schmitz

In the Los Angeles Review of Books: “Rob Schmitz is the Shanghai bureau chief for American Public Media’s Marketplace. He broke the story about Mike Daisey, showing that Daisey’s reporting on Chinese factory workers for This American Life was full of fabrication. He talks here with Angilee Shah about that story, about reporting in China, […]

April 18 at UCLA, I’ll be in coversation with Marketplace China correspondent Rob Schmitz

These days, Rob is in the news for debunking the Mike Daisey Foxconn investigation that aired on This American Life. We’ll be talking about that story and his other reporting on China for American Public Media’s Marketplace radio program at UCLA on April 17. Is there something you want me to ask? Please leave your questions in […]

First press on Chinese Characters comes from Beijing

The collection of essays about everyday lives in China that I have been working on for about two years made its pre-publication debut in China at the M Literary Festival. Chinese Characters contributors Evan Osnos, Ian Johnson, Michelle Loyalka, Christina Larson and my co-editor Jeffrey Wasserstrom spoke on the “Art of the Profile” at a Beijing panel discussion earlier this month. […]