Jimmy Lai — 2024 Person of the Year

Hong Kong Apostasy Shortly before Christmas 2023, Jimmy Lai (Lai Chee-ying 黎智英, 1947-), a former pro-democracy media tycoon went on trial in Hong Kong under a Beijing-imposed national security law. He had been in custody since December 2020.… Read

As the Year Flitters Away — Lao Shu’s Autumnal Hues

The Other China 翩然而去   Lao Shu 老樹 is the nom de plume of Liu Shuyong (劉樹勇, 1962-), a Beijing-based artist, writer, critic and professor in communications. His artistic voice is unique and personal, its tenor, whimsy and profundity evoke what for decades we have called The Other China — a cultural noosphere that is as undeniably local as it is universal.… Read

Those 107 Days

Empires of Tedium 有沒有希望   The uplifting message of We’re Not Going Back—Or, Are We?, an essay by John Pavlovitz reproduced here as part of the series America’s Empire of Tedium — Trump Redux 2024, is as vital as it is familiar.… Read

Other People’s Thoughts LI

Other People’s Thoughts This is the fifty first chapter in Other People’s Thoughts, a China Heritage series inspired by a compilation of quotations put together by Simon Leys (Pierre Ryckmans), one of our Ancestors, during his reading life.… Read

The American Green Zone in Our Consciousness

Spectres & Souls   … we need a way to mute America. Why? Because America has no chill. … America insists that you bear witness to it tripping on its dick and slamming its face into an uncountable row of scalding hot pies.… Read