• The China Blog

    LARB’s China Blog covers the life, culture, politics and literature of China. It is edited by Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Maura Elizabeth Cunningham. If you’re looking for blog posts prior to September 2013, please visit our China Blog tumblr page.

    The “Inspector Chen” Poems: A Look at the Man and His Verse

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    By Qiu Xiaolong As fans of the “Inspector Chen” novels know, the Shanghai detective not only excels at solving crimes and …

    Jason Y. Ng’s Street-Level View of Hong Kong’s Year of Umbrellas

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    By Susan Blumberg-Kason Before my visit to Hong Kong in mid-October 2014, I was worried. The Occupy Movement was two …

    ‘Ten Years’ — More than Just a Lesson in Despair

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    By Jeffrey Wasserstrom The more that I heard about the Hong Kong independent film Ten Years during the first months …

    Loving It or Listing It in China

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    By Austin Dean A sure sign of adulthood is an interest in real estate. There comes a moment when you’re …

    Mao Badges — Red, Bright and Shiny (And Open to Every Form of Capitalist Speculation)

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    By Helen Wang and Paul Crook In his new book, The Cultural Revolution: A People’s History 1962-1976, historian Frank Dikötter …

    From Sichuan to Shanghai: A Q&A with Marketplace Correspondent and Street of Eternal Happiness Author Rob Schmitz

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    By Susan Blumberg-Kason Rob Schmitz has witnessed enormous changes in China since he first lived in rural Sichuan twenty years …

    The Great American (in China) Novel

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    By Robert Foyle Hunwick Fiction by foreigners in China has lost its sheen considerably since the days of André Malraux’s …

    It’s Time to Get Over QWERTY — A Q&A with Tom Mullaney on Alphabets, Chinese Characters, and Computing

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    Jeffrey Wasserstrom inverviews Tom Mullaney Last month, I was one of two speakers at a lunchtime event on China held …

    Following the Money with Ma Yinchu

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    By Austin Dean Who pays for what? This is an eternal source of disagreement in public administration. It’s the question …

    Bringing Empress Wu Back to Life (on the Page)—A Q&A with Weina Dai Randel

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    By Susan Blumberg-Kason Last year, Weina Dai Randel was virtually unknown. Now she’s causing a stir in literary scenes from …