Chinese factories in Italy are not only driving the "fast fashion" industry of cheap goods, but pushing Italians out of an industry that has historically been identified with them. [Al-Jazeera] more ›

Two months ago, in Singapore, the naked body of a 24 year old Chinese woman, Li Hongyan, was found floating in the pool of a bungalow owned by a real estate tycoon located in the posh Sentosa Cove district. The woman had been working in Singapore at an Indian restaurant, but was moonlighting as a karaoke hostess. more ›

In this latest episode of Sexy Beijing, Sufei meets up with Shanghai-born Qiu Xiaolong (裘小龙), author of the award-winning Inspector Chen series of mystery novels, Death of a Red Heroine (2000), A Loyal Character Dancer (2002), When Red Is Black (2004), A Case of Two Cities (2006), and Red Mandarin Dress. Qiu currently lives in St Louis, Missouri and writes all his books (and poetry) in English, and only recently have his works been translated in Mandarin. His Wikipedia entry includes the following tidbit:

He originally visited the United States in 1988 to write a book about T. S. Eliot, but following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 a newspaper reported on his previous fundraising efforts for Chinese students, and he was forced to remain in America to avoid persecution by the Communist Party of China.