Artists and officials, cosy together in the Middle Kingdom

Posted on by Jason Li

Over at the Atlantic, Nick Frisch discusses the outrage that ensued when Mo Yan, “Communist Party member, People’s Liberation Army veteran, Vice-Chairman of the state-run China Writers’ Association” won the Nobel Prize for Literature last October.

 The paper quoted Gao Xingjian, the 2000 literature laureate whose dissident stature and French citizenship made him ineligible for recognition as a “Chinese”…

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Ethnography of Tech

Some initial thoughts about the popularity of QQ’s WeChat (aka Weixin)

Posted on by Tricia Wang
Shake it function (摇一摇)
Shake it function (摇一摇)

Excerpted from Bytes of China:

A few weeks ago, a conversation about the popularity of WeChat emerged on a tech mailing lists. Someone posted several reasons why they thought WeChat was more usable than Skype. They listed several technical reasons, such as ease of use, great mobile interface, and more efficient…

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How a bookstore evolved into becoming a banned books center in Hong Kong

Posted on by Jason Li

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From the Atlantic, In Hong Kong, a Sanctuary for Banned Books:

Later that year we began to get mainland visitors from cities like Beijing and Tianjin who were traveling on their own. Our sign said “People’s Commune” in Chinese, and our logo was Mao Zedong’s face, so maybe that caught their eye. Sometimes, customers would ask…

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Swipe typing, China edition

Posted on by Jason Li

Above: TouchPal (触宝)’s promo video for their smartphone swipe-typing technology. Note the (probably unauthorized) Lady Gaga soundtrack.

Francis Pisani over at Winch5 has a feature on TouchPal Cootek, a China born-and-bred smartphone swipe-typing technology. Pisani claims that their keyboard works much better than the Swype that’s offered on Samsung phones. Amongst Cootek’s many features are predictive text…

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Typography Design

Featured design: Cover

Posted on by Jason Li

Update: It seems that magCulture is no longer selling this from its online store, and the originally linked-to review has gone missing.

Presenting Cover, a new magazine coming out of China by Mazzybox. (Anyone have more information about him/her? magCulture says that Mazzybox works at a studio called Deadline.)

The magazine’s second edition, pictured…

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Starting Up in Shenzhen

The Hardware Fairyland of Huaqiangbei Road, Shenzhen

Posted on by Jason Li

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Photos by Windell H. Oksay, from an Evil Mad Scientist post in 2009. From the hours I spent there last year, it hasn’t changed since then. Note the heavy advertising expenditure from Samsung, who were out there back in 2009 already. 

The electronics markets around Huaqiangbei Road (华强北路) in Shenzhen…

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Ethnography of Tech

Inspiration for the future of cars from resource-constrained vendors in China

Posted on by Tricia Wang
A father-son team work together in a workshop modifying three-wheeled vehicles in Guizhou, China.

China is now the largest car market. But many Western companies are discovering that simply transferring cars designed for Western users do not always appeal to Asian users. Point in case GM’s Cadillac, a car built for…

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