Rural Violence: A Problematic Symptom of Change
Between year-end deadlines and the MidWest and Appalachia getting hammered by an early Winter, I haven’t been posting here as much as I had planned, but that’s neither here nor there. In the course of conducting interviews for year-end stories that will be appearing on Electronic News over the course of the next few weeks, almost invariably people want to pick my brain about China, or just hear first hand about my trip. That’s not really surprising, nor have peoples’ own various impressions of China at the moment, which have run the gamut. But recent civil unrest in a...
Read MoreWhere in China, Indeed
Where should you set up shop in China? What about where I would set up shop in China?
Read MoreJetlag and Reverse Culture Shock: Back in the U.S.A.
Well, it’s been a week since I’ve returned to the United States from my month in China, and I finally seem to be back on a Western hemisphere rhythm. For several days following my return home to West Virginia, after a few days in the office on the left coast, I could not stay up past 8 p.m. I would try and try to stay awake, but to no avail, promptly waking up 3:15 a.m. or so. But that’s the rather mundane aspect of my experience; after a month in China some of the things that I would normally take for granted seem strange. Like being in a crowd of people and understanding...
Read MoreThank You and Good Night
HONG KONG — Boy oh boy, what a place to end a month-long Chinese sojourn. I arrived here this afternoon; the sun is setting on my last night in China. But then Hong Kong isn’t really China, in the same sense that San Francisco isn’t really the United States. It’s in the United States, but it isn’t an American city. Just like no country can really claim its bustling port cities as their own, it’s clear even after just a few hours that Hong Kong is a unique place. Hong Kong isn’t Chinese, it’s Hong Kong. There is every flavor of human being here;...
Read MoreLet Us Set the Record Straight
SHENZHEN, China — I was just going through the comments section of this blog to make sure all of the submitted comments had been cleared, when I came across one in an earlier post that was still pending. You see, in order to keep out spam and profanity, we review all the comments that are submitted prior to them appearing live on the site. And it was the straw that broke my metaphorical camel’s back. You can find it here. But it doesn’t really matter; there have been similar ridiculous comments. Being a journalist, I’m pretty thick skinned; we’re like lawyers:...
Read MoreShopping, Shenzhen and Farmer Ye: Pondering the New China
SHENZHEN, China — I’ve come to the conclusion that many, if not most Chinese people love to shop. Now before the ignorant self-righteous weigh in, let me add that I’m not knocking China; far from it. After all, the movement to a market economy is still underway — less than a generation ago, really — and I imagine that many middle-aged people have disposable income for the first time in their lives, and want to spend it. As a middle class American I would feel hypocritical if I found fault with that. Then of course, there is the bargaining. Travelers to China...
Read More
All original content posted here -- words and images -- are copyright © Jeff Chappell 2009-2012 unless otherwise noted.
Jeff Chappell: journalism nerd; web geek. That's the short story. Want the longer one?