LONGFORM
The Hyperreal Life of Chen Qiufan
WIRED Magazine
On Chen Qiufan: sci-fi writer or prophet?
Greetings Premier, I Run a Gay Website
The New York Times Magazine
On the largest gay dating app in the world.
Chengdu Cool: The Rise of Sichuan's Homegrown Hip-Hop
Guernica Magazine
On Chengdu’s newest rappers.
Dream State
Harper’s
On a city’s awakening.
FEATURES
China’s “Involuted” Generation
The New Yorker
On the new word of ennui, burnout and entrapment that has gone viral on Chinese social media.
GitHub Is a Free Speech Zone for Covid Information
WIRED
On cute cats, and the last land of free speech.
A Taiwanese Literary Landmark Comes to China's Venice
Foreign Policy Magazine
On a Taiwanese bookstore navigating censorship in China.
Pharma Valley, China’s Kendall Square, is expanding rapidly
The Boston Globe
On Pharma Valley, the center of China’s biotech industry
The Larger Meaning of China’s Crackdown on School Tutoring
The New Yorker
On China’s curbs on school tutoring & the roller-coaster of common prosperity.
China's Nouveau Riche Have Landed on America's Campuses
Foreign Policy Magazine
On the shifting demographic of Chinese students in the U.S..
China in unfamiliar territory as rust belt cities flatline
The Guardian
On Harbin, the Northeastern Chinese city playing catch up.
The Chinese Farmer Who Live-Streamed Her Life and Made a Fortune
The New Yorker
On the live-streaming app Kuaishou — creative expression for society’s marginalised.
China’s AI Dreams Aren’t For Everyone
Foreign Policy Magazine
On artificial intelligence in China’s education system.
China embraces a revolution in genetic testing
The Boston Globe
On the rising popularity of consumer genetic testing.
COLUMNS
For Rest of World, I write a column called Inside The Walled Garden of China’s, getting inside the internet to examine how its apps, digital phenomena, and subcultures are radically reshaping the everyday lives of people in China and beyond.
China’s Digital Couch
In China, therapy is going mobile.
Solidarity now, solidarity through screens
The online resilience of China’s feminist movement
Patriotic Pastoral
The reappearance of China’s darling rural vlogger Li Ziqi
Return to the Walled Garden
Digital life in a pandemic China.
How China’s Food Delivery Apps Exploit Drivers
China’s efficient food delivery algorithms come at a human cost.
Chinese Internet Chatter on Ukraine
Nationalist standom and the warped lens of social media
Waving Goodbye to Weibo
A blogger’s breakup with Weibo.
The Rise and Fall of Hupan University
On Jack Ma’s school for entrepreneurs
ESSAYS
Boundary Ball
Chaoyang Trap
On skirting the lines and pushing for change.
Flying Pigs
Chaoyang Trap
On VC-jargon and seizing opportunities.
Rear Waves
Chaoyang Trap
On patriotic positive energy, and cut chives
Recycling in Paradise
Off Assignment
On one summer in Taipei, learning how to recycle and let go.
Why Chinese Rappers Don’t Fight the Power
BBC
On patriotic rap.
Between Memory and Forgetting
The Baffler (Reprint in Lapham’s Quarterly)
On common sense.
The Emperor Stole My Hot Swipe
Popula
On swiping inside the Firewall.
First Draft of the Book of Genes
Technode
On the rising popularity of consumer genetic tests
Tiptoeing Around the Great Firewall of China
The Yale Daily News
On rocking the boat, gently.
CRITICISM
Surveying China’s Live-streaming Economy
The Economist
On People’s Republic of Desire.
An art gallery buried on China’s Beach
The Economist
On UCCA Dune, the art gallery buried beneath a sand dune.
Slow Burn: The Rise of Chinese-American Rapper Bohan Phoenix
The LA Review of Books
On the Chinese-American rapper Bohan Phoenix.
VIDEO
EDITING
A range of reports, news stories and ideas articles I’ve commissioned and edited for the China desk at Rest of World can be found here.