My Last Empress by Da Chen [Book Review]

My Last Empress by Da Chen [Book Review]

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Da Chen’s My Last Empress is a mixture of fable and reality, viewed through the imperfect perception of its characters rather than the crisp clear view of an omniscient narrator. While not perhaps the “hallucinatory realism” lauded by the Nobel Committee in their…

Obama’s “Creative Ambiguity” Preserves Stability in East Asia [Fair Observer]

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While talk of a ‘G2’ may have been overblown, the Washington-Beijing relationship may now be the world’s most important bilateral relationship. As China continues to grow, some have called for a harsher policy; Vice-Presidential candidate Paul Ryan told a crowd…

Winner Take All by Dambisa Moyo [Book Review]

Winner Take All by Dambisa Moyo [Book Review]

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The emergence of China as a major economic and political power is perhaps the most important development in the global system since the collapse of the Soviet Union. While this change is sometimes manifested through  the launch of China’s first aircraft carrier,…

Why not focus on things people can agree upon [China Daily]

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With the breakdown of talks and the protest march last Sunday, the national education issue has reached an impasse. It is now a political argument to be won, rather than a policy question to be solved. The risk is that…

Chinese Proverbs and Popular Sayings by Qin Xue Herzberg and Larry Herzberg [Book Review]

Chinese Proverbs and Popular Sayings by Qin Xue Herzberg and Larry Herzberg [Book Review]

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The short Chinese proverb—a sometimes-poetic, sometimes-pithy observation about life—is a trope of popular culture. More sayings have been attributed to ‘ancient Chinese philosophers’ than could be possible. Of course, this has a grain of truth: Chinese features a wide array…

Through the Eyes of Tiger Cubs: Views of Asia’s Next Generation by Mark L. Clifford & Janet Pau [Book Review]

Through the Eyes of Tiger Cubs: Views of Asia’s Next Generation by Mark L. Clifford & Janet Pau [Book Review]

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When trying to discern Asia’s future, perhaps the group whose viewpoints should be most sought after are those of Asia’s young. This is the group, after all, who be living that future. (I admit, in full disclosure, to being one…

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Hagashino [Book Review]

The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Hagashino [Book Review]

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The joy of reading detective fiction needn’t come from the crime—at least, not directly. The details of any crime, from the methods used by the criminal to his or her motivations, are often interchangeable between different detective stories. What an unsolved crime…

The Chinese Roots of Linear Algebra by Roger Hart [Book Review]

The Chinese Roots of Linear Algebra by Roger Hart [Book Review]

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“Tattered sandles.” This was the judgment of Xu Guangqi, the official collaborating with the Jesuit Matteo Ricci’s effort to bring Euclid’s Elements to China, on the state of contemporary Chinese mathematics. These sentiments were repeated by later academics and historians, who created…

Mission to China by Mary Laven [Book Review]

Mission to China by Mary Laven [Book Review]

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Narratives created to explain trends of national power often falter when tested against history. No sooner had the narrative of liberalism finally winning its long struggle against totalitarianism been postulated that the emergence of a successful yet authoritarian China started…

Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutscher [Book Review]

Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutscher [Book Review]

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At first, the idea that language affects the way we think seems plausible, if not obvious. Given that we often perceive people of different cultures to be thinking differently, and language is often coterminous with culture, one might be forgiven…