China

President Barack Obama will meet China’s President Xi Jinping in an informal setting in Southern California on June 7-8, an added stop for President Xi en route back to China from state visits in the Caribbean. This more or less impromptu meeting has aroused a lot of interest on both sides of the Pacific. Some pundits do not expect the meeting to move the needle on bilateral relations. Others hope for an outcome that’s more than status quo.

I live in dread that the Chinese government will find out our true identities. Even my parents do not know what I am doing. For the past few years, I have worked by day in the California criminal justice system and by night editing Free More News, a news blog that defies Chinese censors. Since we are based in the United States, we have the freedom to publish as we please. Chinese journalists do not. 

Ni hao, Chinese for “hello,” or ting bu dong, meaning “I hear you, but I don’t understand,” are two expressions one often overhears today in Zimbabwe’s capital. It is one of the results of tenacious efforts by governments, private companies and individuals across Africa, but in Zimbabwe particularly, to learn the Chinese language and understand China’s culture. Learning Chinese as a second or third language has been a global trend in the last few years. In Africa, the rapid increase of Chinese investments and trade (China is currently the continent’s biggest trading partner) has spurred the trend.

Following North Korea’s latest test of a nuclear device on Feb. 12, protestors gathered in a public park in the southern Chinese province of Guangzhou. While most were there to voice frustration over the North’s intransigence, many also denounced Beijing’s inability to control its recalcitrant ally. According to reports, similar scenes played out across the country, a growing public chorus that echoes international frustration over North Korea.

San Francisco’s Chinatown is the most densely populated neighborhood west of Manhattan. It’s a place of immigrants, where English is not the primary language. But as fewer Chinese migrate here, I asked Gordon Chin, What did he think was going to happen to American Chinatowns? He said with crisis, comes opportunity. “So in terms of opportunity with the growth of China, there’s pride with that, there’s economic opportunity, there’s socio and cultural ties.”

In less than two weeks U.S. voters will decide on who they want at the helm of government over the next four years. For many, that decision will be influenced by which candidate, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, promises to be tougher on China. "China bashing" isn’t new to presidential politics here, notes Zhiyue Chen of the Chinese-language Yazhou Zhoukan (Asia Weekly).  With the collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent rise of China, both parties have now honed in on a new "imaginary enemy."

China is kinetic. Frenetic. A constant barrage of dutiful chaos a billion souls strong. It’s a place where grandma and grandpa still don the blue Mao suits, while their upwardly mobile offspring drive late model Porsche SUVs. Today, the Western world is fixated on China’s economic growth and mixed market economy, but we rarely see or hear about the Chinese people and their daily life.

Things tend to disappear in Beijing. Long-term residents regularly speak of the death of old Beijing - the lost Hutong alleyways, the disappearing bicycles, the much less sketchy concert venues. Restaurants, bars and businesses open and close at a frantic pace, entire parts of the city can be destroyed and built again in a few years. Beijingers conspire to share their  favorite “hidden places,” where they can still enjoy what they love about the city before it becomes popular or  is redeveloped.