A group blog about Chinese tech, media and design
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
Dockless bikeshares in Europe predated the arrival of Chinese companies like Ofo and Mobike, at least in Berlin, but it was a recent trip in Shenzhen and Beijing that I saw their potential at scale. I am used to seeing Chinese tech phenomena remain just that, ie, limited to China. But the near omnipresence of these bikes in major cities — I…
Continue readingChinese tech globalizing like the US, with drones and bikeshares leading the way
The second Melon festival about “science fiction, innovation and the future” took place in Hong Kong on March 17 and was markedly more packed, slick and diverse than its predecessor. Festival organizers added a third set of speakers – scientists – to their roster this year on top of the previously-featured science fiction authors and…
Continue readingMelon Festival Year 2: emphasizing the science in science fiction