Announcing Hǎi 海
Global Chinese stories, Global Chinese voices, and the latest community events around the world.
Hi there,
This is the latest update from Hǎi 海, an experimental new creative platform for global Chinese stories from the Asia Society’s ChinaFile. This project is still in beta.
All the best,
Jeremy Goldkorn, Muyi Xiao, Sara Segal-Williams, and Susie Jakes
Originally sent October 21, 20225
Cultural and community events
NEW YORK
Accent Sisters 重音社
Accent Sisters is a bookstore, bilingual publishing house, and creative writing school in Brooklyn. Upcoming events include:
The launch of Terao Tetsuya’s Spent Bullets, with translator Kevin Wang in conversation with Anelise Chen.
Spent Bullets is set in Taiwan and the Silicon Valley, “a collection of linked stories that explore the meaning of success and the purpose of existence.”
Friday, October 24, 7:00 pmCyberPink, a Chinese-language podcast about global pop culture, will organize its inaugural offline book club at Accent Sisters to read Japanese author Asako Yuzuki’s novel Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder
Saturday, November 1, 3:00 pm.
Nü Zi Zhu Yi 女子主义
A platform for the diaspora of Chinese feminists . Next event in New York:
Feminist open mic: What is “human talk” and what is “wicked talk”?
Saturday, November 1, 2:00 pm
Dance Social Club x 50Hertz Tingly Foods
Dance Social Club collaborated with 50Hertz Tingly Foods to throw a fun dance event on October 16. Yao Zhao, founder of 50Hertz, which infuses tingly Sichuan peppercorn into all kinds of foods, brought tasting samples of their popular peanut and toffee brittle snacks. Nina Cheng, founder of Dance Social Club where she shares easy dance moves and good vibes, taught a calorie-burning routine to go with the song “Numb” by Marshmello & Khalid.
Dance Social Club’s upcoming sessions are on November 5 and November 13 at 48th Street in Manhattan.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
JF Books
Shanghai’s famous book store moved to Washington and is probably one of the best Chinese-language bookstores in the world now. You can find JF Books’ October calendar here. One of their next events is:
Interview in English with Vivian Ling on Love Without Borders –a Sino-US Collaborated Book About International Adoptions of Chinese Orphans
Thursday, October 30, 6:00 pm
Video and Film
Upcoming: Screening of Mistress Dispeller and director interview
An extraordinary new documentary by Elizabeth Lo: “In China, a new industry has emerged devoted to helping couples stay married in the face of infidelity. Wang Zhenxi is part of this growing profession and is hired to go undercover and break up affairs by any means necessary; a “mistress dispeller.” Offering strikingly intimate access to a real, unfolding love triangle, Mistress Dispeller documents all sides of what is usually kept behind closed doors.” October 22-23 IFC Center, New York
Electroshock therapy in China
TV reporter Chai Jing has a new program on her YouTube channel following up on her 2009 reporting for CCTV on the abuses of electroshock therapy as a “treatment” for depression, homosexuality, and other adolescent behaviors that the authorities don’t like.
Kids’ “Hare and Tortoise” dance goes viral
“I can’t believe these are just kids…it’s an avant-gardey level of performance” is one comment on TikTok about a video of children doing a contemporary dance, “The Tortoise and the Hare,” at the closing ceremony of the 19th Beijing Dance Competition.
From Brooklyn to Beijing
Hasani Arnold, who gained popularity on social media by sharing his experience learning Chinese language and living in China, recently talked in a video about his personal journey of growing up in Brookly (Bed-Stuy) and Queens (near Flushing), and how he decided to go to China.
Podcasts
Bu Mingbai podcast
Cai Xia: What could be Xi Jinping’s ultimate fate? 蔡霞：习近平可能的终局是什么？
Rose Luqiu Luwei 閭丘露薇
Grace, a veteran of the fine dining industry, reflects on her journey and the upheavals reshaping the field. 動齡茶EP014： 30年餐飲人告白：我的人生只要有美食相伴
Pixel Perfect 新新人类
Dreamed at Burning Man only to wake up in SF 去火人节做梦，在旧金山醒来
The Weirdo Podcast 不合时宜
Behind the Protests in Indonesia: Economic Inequality, Colonial History, and the Country’s Relationship with the Chinese Community 印尼抗议背后：经济不平等、殖民历史及与华人的关系
CyberPink 疲惫娇娃
Vibe Shift Trilogy–The Return of Conservative Femininity 保守女性气质的回潮
The American Roulette 美仑美奂
Unplugging Network TV: 从鸡毛秀到CBS易主：美国传统电视的末代危机
Text: newsletters and websites
Boston Review of Books
Wang Dongni | My Grandfather Wang Geng: A Hidden Talent of the Republican Era 王冬妮 | 我的祖父王赓：一位被遮蔽的民国才俊
Liao Zhifeng | Slow Train to Princeton: Postscript to Yu Yingshi’s Memoirs 廖志峰 | 开往普林斯顿的慢车：《余英时回忆录》后记
When Freedom of Speech Becomes Political Correctness under Party Rotation and the Commemoration of Cohen and Cohen 當言論自由成為黨派輪替下的政治正確與紀念孔傑榮、柯文兩位加收
Xu Ben: Daily Life under Totalitarianism: Witness Memories and Records 徐贲 | 极权下的自我文献及其解读
Chinese Literature and Arts:
Rewriting the Rules in Academic Hell—On R. F. Kuang’s Katabasis (《降冥》)
When All Things Simply Grow— A First-Generation Chinese Immigrant’s Family Tragedy and a Mother’s Choice of Writing
China Thought Express
Hsu Cho-yun and the Spirit of the Traditional Chinese Scholar-Official 许倬云与中国传统士人精神
China Unofficial Archives
Breaking the Ice: Li Shenzhi and American Studies in China in the 1980s: 破冰年代：李慎之与1980年代中国的美国研究