Watch This Super Cute Animated Intro to Alibaba’s Personal Finance Product
Posted on by Jason Li
Author: Jason Li
Jason Li is an independent designer, artist and educator. Once upon a time, he studied engineering and ran a news site about fan translations of video games.
The Long-list King of China Bloggers Returns
Posted on by Jason Li
When I first started blogging about China, Roland Soong’s EastSouthWestNorth was an essential destination for any China watchers at the time. This was back in 2005. A former media analyst, and now heir to some formidable Chinese-literary estates, Soong would translate page-long excerpts from multiple newspapers and magazines about the same “suddenly breaking incident.” Then he would throw in a few terse…
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Apple dominates in the Chinese MOOC space even though it’s not a MOOC
Posted on by Jason Li
Spurred by this article on MOOCs taken hold in Hong Kong, I decided to do a survey on MOOC adoption by Chinese institutions. I did not, as you can see, survey any Chinese MOOC platforms (are there any?), so it’s a bit of a biased selection.
Chinese etymology meets modern graphic design
Posted on by Jason Li
Entrepreneur ShaoLan Hsueh has teamed up with designer-illustrator Noma Bar to breathe new life into the age old practice of teaching kids Chinese characters using its pictorial etymology. And they need your support for their Kickstarter campaign.
Even though the campaign over sells itself (with prosaic catchphrases like “The real agenda behind…
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WeChat: Buying their way to the top of the world?
Posted on by Jason Li
Mini-documentary on Cult Youth on making comix in China
Posted on by Jason Li
Book Review: Understanding China through Comics, Volume 3: The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms
Posted on by Jason Li
The third volume of “Understanding China through Comics” continues Liu’s epic quest to chronicle all of ancient Chinese history in comic form. As with the first two volumes, the book zips through Chinese history, in this case 907 to 1368 AD, with text and illustrations.
Liu spends more of the third volume explaining Chinese cultural ideology and geopolitical context than…
Book review: Factory Towns of South China
Posted on by Jason Li
“Factory Towns of South China: An Illustrated Guidebook” is, despite its title, more social science research than it is a real guidebook. But within the realm of social science and urban planning, it compiles an incredible wealth of information – from the history and sociology of factory towns under communist rule to a peek at a day in the…
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Classic & Modern Chinese Landscape Paintings: Which is which?
Posted on by Jason Li
First up, a modern rendition of the Zhangye Danxia (a classic landscape found only in China) by Rebecca Mok.
(Via Rebecca Mok Illustrates.)
Then, a classic Chinese landscape style rendering by Zao Lu…
(Via Co.Design.)
…except that Zao’s “paintings” are actually photoshopped pictures of trash…
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Artists and officials, cosy together in the Middle Kingdom
Posted on by Jason Li