China: Nightingale Ascending

Nurses in China suffer from overwork and long hours, and increasingly from physical and verbal abuse at the hands of their patients and their families, who are convinced that medical staff are corrupt. The journal Medical World WeChat account posted the resignation letter of one such nurse, who endured all this and more. “It is […]

Water

When they speak of China, the Chinese speak of the South and the North: the South is wet, lush, and the people living there traditionally eat rice, which is a water-intensive crop; the North, on the other hand, is dry, and arid. There’s not much in the way of rice growing in the north of […]

China: “upon all the living and the dead”

It is a little (actually very) late, but the incendiary, self-financed documentary Under the Dome by Chai Jing, one of China’s best known journalists, is worth watching. It is about air pollution, which is finally being debated in China. I recall taking the train from Shanghai to Nanjing, and Shanghai to Hangzhou on successive days, […]

Milk

2008 was supposed to be a glorious year for China, and in some senses it was: it was the year of the Beijing Olympics, in which the host nation topped the gold medal table, and the world was delivered an event that showcased a confident China, firmly in control of her own destiny. That control […]

Spilled Water

覆水难收

Month: June 2015

China: Nightingale Ascending

Water

China: “upon all the living and the dead”

Milk