A group blog about Chinese tech, media and design
As Wuhan and other nearby cities in China remain in lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak, the normally festive Lunar New Year season is now beset with anxiety and grief. People across the country have taken to social media…
Continue readingChinese Cartoonists Grieve, Pray & Respond to the Coronavirus Outbreak
Ahead of its sixth Crystal Ruth Bell Residency program (apply now – it’s fully funded!), the team at China Residencies took a cross-country tour around China to visit art and culture spaces new and old. Below we’re featuring photo highlights from this strip, which have been culled…
Continue readingPhoto essay: China Residencies’ 2019 cross-country tour of arts spaces
Hong Kong cartoonist Ah To has three claims to fame: as an internet culture expert, political cartoonist, and linguist of the Cantonese language. First, he rose to prominence after creating the Golden Creature Card game that celebrates the city’s internet culture. Then he built a career as a political…
Continue readingCantonese.jpg: A boisterous, cartoon dictionary of idioms, proverbs and slang
Internet memes about social issues have a spotty history on China’s internet, where netizens have had to evade, obfuscate and mask their posts in an evolving game of censorship cat…
Continue readingAcceptable Protest: The 2019 workplace meme that’s thriving on China’s internet
This early excerpt from Open All the Buddha Boxes chronicles the rise of two seminal Beijing bands, Hang On The Box and Chui Wan, as they carve out a space for themselves in and outside of China. We follow members of the two bands as they develop their sounds, identities and…
Continue readingAn illustrated love letter to the Beijing underground music scene
A young woman with big, circular glasses is nudged out onto the platform by the rivers of the passengers going in and out of the train. She finds herself at an unfamiliar stop, but close to home, and she is forced to take the night bus to complete her journey. The bus, and its inhabitants, have other ideas, taking her on a…
Continue readingNight Bus: journey through the fantastical Chinese countryside