The Dictatorship of Talent chronicles the Chinese path jumping through various hoops of education to success. The editorial has an important explanation of the Party as it is now--no longer about communist ideology, but now more like a "gigantic Skull and Bones" social network. In the end, though, the writer questions the ability of the individuals risen to success through this system, where they are not taught to question but to repeat.
I also have a couple of bits on the Beijing front:
The New York Times (if you can't tell, my new favorite source of information...) has been running a series called Choking on Growth about China's industrialization and drive towards prosperity, highlighting the disastrous environmental and societal effects. The most recent part of the series focused on Beijing's attempts to clear its skies for the Olympics in '08. Despite their efforts, you can see Tiananmen Square in the photo to the right (courtesy of NYtimes.com, AP). For comparison, I attached my own photo from this past August to show it's not always so bad (though I did suffer through a couple of days this bad last January '07).
On a lighter note, Sexy Beijing is one of my new favorite things on the internet. A spin-off show from the acclaimed Danwei.org, a blog about media and news in China, Sexy Beijing is a series of Youtube-supported videos starring Anna Sophie Loewenberg in a show opening with an homage to Sexy in the City, but quickly turning into often interesting, usually hilarious street-side interviews. "Sufei" uses her language skills in Chinese, sometimes aided by friends, to penetrate some of the more curious aspects of love and life in everyone's favorite city--Beijing. It's really a great study break, but really opens up China, specifically Beijing, culture in a very tangible way. Don't pass this up.
Don't pass any of them up.
