The outside world mostly does not know China for its humor, although it adopted a Chinese variation youmo. Journalist Ian Johnson discusses with Christopher Rea, author of The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China, at the New York Times humor in China.Read More →
China is proud about its millennia old culture, but just like the rest of society, its culture is also changing very fast. Old concepts like guanxi, losing face and the suppressed position of women are not what they were even a few decades ago. Many so-called China experts still cling to those old idea, but fortunately, we can offer a range of speakers at the China Speakers Bureau who have a clear view on how China´s culture is changing.Read More →
The Christian faith in China, sometimes illegally, sometimes condoned by the government, is growing fast, faster than other religions. Journalist Ian Johnson, author of the upcoming book The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, explains in the Spectator why.Read More →
This summer journalist and internet expert Kaiser Kuo left his position at Baidu, to return to the US and works as a host of the Sinica podcast at China-focused media startup SupChina. At CCTV he looks back at almost 30 years of change, he experienced. The 1980s saw still most profound change, he tells. Then the software, the mentality changed profoundly. Later it was mostly the hardware of the country that adjusted to those earlier changes.Read More →
Journalist Ian Johnson, author of the upcoming The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao interviews Prasenjit Duara, a leading thinker on religion in Asia and (in this section) personal salvation and efforts to save the world, for the New York Times.Read More →
Award-winning journalist Ian Johnson reports in ChinaFile on the monthly trip poet Liu Xia makes to visit her husband, Nobel price winner Lui Xiaobo, and her slowly increasing production of new poems. “A small, fragile woman with extremely short-cropped hair that sets off her high cheekbones and bright, wide eyes.”Read More →
2017 is going to be a productive year for both Zhang Lijia and Ian Johnson as they are going to publish their long-awaited books. Both are very well versed in documenting cultural change in China, a development that often remain undetected for the outside world.Read More →
Journalist Ian Johnson explores for the New York Times, the search by Yang Weidong into what he calls the soul of China. He interviewed and filmed 405 thinkers, artists, musicians, writers, historians — anyone who has thought hard about China’s future. “Some are government critics, others support the party, but all have opinions.”Read More →
Feminism is on the rise in China, and much has changed for the better, tells author and journalist Zhang Lijia of the upcoming novel Lotus: A Novel, in TakePart.Com, in an issue on feminism in China. But too many things have not yet changed, or change too slowly.Read More →
Author Alec Ash published after four years of study Wish Lanterns: Inside the Young Lives of China, documenting the life of the millenniums in China. Journalist Ian Johnson of the New York Times sat down with him to discuss how they are bringing change to China.Read More →
Zhang Lijia´s upcoming novel Lotus: A Novel will only appear early 2017, but the first raving reviews are already coming in. Renowned Indian author Amitav Ghosh praises the story the main figure migrant Lotus and the way she ends up in prostitution.Read More →
McDonald´s might be in China for decades, it still has problems to adjust to the fast changing realities on the ground, says business analyst Shaun Rein to QZ. They now decided to increase their franchises and leave the cooking to people who better know the Chinese taste, says Shaun Rein, and that seems a smart idea.Read More →