As Maura Elizabeth Cunningham and Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom mention in Yale Global, Chinese officials have been disappointed by the lack of foreigner interest in the World Expo. While foreign media outlets have done their part to talk about and promote the event, very few foreigners are actually coming. Then again, this may just be because, "more than any city in the world, Shanghai already resembles a futuristic fairground even when no circus is in town," making this age's World's Fair redundant. more ›

What do people who grew up during the Cultural Revolution feel about youth who've grown up in the "Consumer Revolution"? Alec Ash over at The China Beat interviews two professors at Peking University and finds out the older generation is worried about their younger counterparts' "self-centeredness" and “psychologically vulnerable." So basically, the phrase "kids these days!" can be heard anywhere around the globe. more ›

While membership in the CCP is at its highest levels either, its actual members are a lot less naive and a lot more jaded about China's one party than you'd think. C. Custer posts interviews with several card carrying CCP members: young, well-educated and politically inclined, but who say things like "I don’t believe in anything in the history textbooks. It’s all lies." more ›

Jeffrey Wasserstrom is a professor of history at University of California - Irvine, a co-founder of The China Beat, the editor of the Journal of Asian Studies, and the author, most recently, of Global Shanghai, 1850-2010 (2009) and China in the 21st Century: What Everyone Needs to Know (forthcoming in April). Today he writes on five books about China that you ought to take note of in 2010. more ›

Clocking in at only 99 pages, Shanghai: High Lights Low Lights Tael Lights is an excellent appetizer for those of us who generally dine on heavier reading fare. The authors, Maurine Karns and Pat Patterson, make their purpose known early in the book: in the preface, titled “an explanation but not an apology,” Karns and Patterson state that they have written Tael Lights “with the hope of enjoying ourselves, of making a little money, and of not committing ourselves to anything for which we might be sorry” (xx). They proceed to describe, with delightful if decidedly un-PC irreverence, the Shanghai they saw before them when writing the book in 1936. more ›

While the Cultural Revolution was no laughing matter, it seems that some clever Chinese were able to get a chuckle or two from skewing political rhetoric behind closed doors. more ›