China’s shift from a planned to a market has lifted millions out of poverty, but for many women the deal has been a bad one, says Beijing-based journalist Zhang Lijia, author of Lotus: A Novel on prostitution in China at Sea Globe.Read More →
Protestantism, Buddhism and Taoism grow fast in China, but followers of the Catholic faith are dwindling. Author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao reports from the countryside on why Catholicism finds it harder to find a solid footprint among Chinese looking for moral values, for the America Magazine.Read More →
Strippers are invited at funerals in Taiwan, drag queens in Sichuan. Author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao discusses at ChinaFile how those drag queens are rooted into society.Read More →
Communication in China has changed into a completely different ball game, most Western visitors fail to get. Especially the blurring line between personal and business communication is key to understand, says business analyst Shaun Rein at Knowledge CKGSB. For example for recruiting.Read More →
Author Zhang Lijia, author of the bestseller Lotus: A Novel, wrote a short story, the Silk Road, for Discovery the magazine of Cathay Pacific and tells in an interview about her preferences while traveling and a new book project on China’s left-behind children.Read More →
Shocking footage of a traffic accident, where nobody came to the rescue of the female victim, triggered off a national debate on the state of morality in China. Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao looks at the different viewpoints of the debate, for the New York Times.Read More →
China is assuming global leadership on climate, now the US is backing out. But how is that related to the grassroot feelings of its citizens? ChinaDialogue asks author Ian Johnson of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao on the links between the environment and the emerging Daoism.Read More →
Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao explains at the acceptance of the Shorenstein for journalism award how after 100 years of self doubt and insecurity, religion revived. Folk religion, more than internationally established ones, has become a vibrant new source of inspiration.Read More →
Often reviewers tend to look at the emergence of world religions like Christianity, Islam and Buddhism, when they summarize Ian Johnson’s book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao. But the most moving chapter is that on the 80 pilgrim associations from Beijing, writes professor Richard Madsen in the Washington Post.Read More →
Journalist Ian Johnson documented in this book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao how an estimated 350 million Chinese citizens found solace in religion, despite a ambiguous governments. In TimesOut Shanghai he tells how he feels that movement will develop in the future.Read More →
Sarah Mellors reviews for the LA Review of Books Zhang Lijia’s Lotus: A Novel. The novel is a telling story of how China’s society works, she says, and both main characters Lotus and Bing illustrate many issues: rural-urban divide, economic development without political liberalization, the post-Mao moral vacuum and money worshiping, and the tension between so-called traditional Chinese values and modern concerns.Read More →
An estimated 350 million Chinese are hooked to different religions, looking for a way to deal with the lack of morality of their current society. The Spectator reviews positively Ian Johnson’s book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, and describes a major change in China’s cultural fabric.Read More →