A group blog about Chinese tech, media and design
A motley crew of publishers, booksellers, NGOs and education companies descended in Hong Kong this year for the 2017 Book Fair. This odd mixture is nothing new (as we noted in 2015 and 2016), and if anything this year’s fair was a more muted affair with fewer dazzling displays, only one large-sized English-language booth, and a rather…
Paradise Systems is a new player in the comics publishing world specializing in independent comics from China and the US. Ahead of their book launch in Brooklyn this Thursday, we sat down with their co-founder Orion Martin to talk about the new venture.
Q: Why publish Chinese comics?
Few people…
Continue readingWhy publish Chinese comics? (Paradise Systems)
The inaugural Melon science fiction conference took place on April 19-20 in Hong Kong. A modest, two-day event, it brought together writers, producers, lawyers and entrepreneurs who work in science fiction and its adjacent industries. One of the main draws of the conference was its mix of speakers from both Greater China and the West, a rare get together in…
Continue readingThe Melon sci-fi conference: a stimulating clash of worlds
Shenzhen: The Silicon Valley of hardware
By WIRED Video, 68 minutes, $0.00
Learning from Shenzhen: China’s Post-Mao Experiment from Special Zone to Model City
Edited by Mary Ann O’Donnell, Winnie Wong, and Jonathan Bach
University of Chicago Press, 283 pp., $35.00
I…
Continue readingFantasies of Shenzhen
Coming to Hong Kong April 19-20: Melon HK, a science fiction conference featuring writers, filmmakers, publishers and producers from China and the West.
Prominent speakers include a founder editor of io9, a (former) director of Penguin Random House, the first PhD graduate in author of the first PhD dissertation on…
Continue readingUpcoming science fiction conference featuring Chinese + Western authors & filmmakers
A few years ago, I observed a curious addition to the emoji set on Sina Weibo: a Grass Mud Horse. It was a little confusing to…
Continue readingHas the Grass Mud Horse been defanged?
Editor’s note: Below is a selection of our favorite Instagram posts that Christina published during her 2016 trip to Beijing, Chengdu & Shanghai to research technology, youth culture and trends.
There are VR kiosks in almost every mid-high end mall I’ve been into in Beijing and Shanghai, as well…
Continue readingVR malls, mobile payments and tuhao-themed parties (#cxinchina 2016 edition)
It was nearing the end of May. With less than two months to go before the Hong Kong Book Fair 2016, Ah To’s book still hadn’t yet hit the presses. In fact, it was looking like the book might not be published at all. Talks had broken down between the author-illustrator and his unnamed, major Hong Kong publisher. Despite a promising start,…