A group blog about Chinese tech, media and design
88 Bar began life as a blog for one of the Institute for the Future’s research programs. This was back in 2006, and our blog was called Virtual China. With it, Lyn and I set out to document our “exploration of virtual experiences and environments in and about China.” Many of our posts had an excited “look…
Invisible Planets
edited & translated by Ken Liu
Tor Books, 383 pp.
未来镜像 Touchable Unreality
edited by 姚海军 & Neil Clarke
China Machine Press, 398 pp.
Science fiction in China is finally enjoying its moment in the spotlight again, more than three decades after it…
Continue readingSci-fi Short Stories with Chinese Characteristics
From The Illustrated Wok‘s Kickstarter page:
Thanks to a customer base that is increasingly savvy about diverse regional cuisines, Chinese food in the West is finally outgrowing its reputation as cheap takeout. We’re seeing the rise of chefs who approach Chinese cooking with the spirit of curiosity and experimentation while staying respectful…
Editor’s note: Below is a select excerpt of An Xiao Mina’s Instagram posts from her recent trip to China.
At the world epicenter of fidget spinners. I see them in my head, spinning spinning spinning in Berlin, New York, Manila, suddenly viral, suddenly memetic.
…
Continue readingPhoto Essay: Fidget Spinners, AR Guns and Panda Cams in Shenzhen
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