An excellent site in English for people wanting to understand China is “The China Beat…Blogging How The East Is Read.”

One of the writers is Peter Hessler Peter Hessler (b. June 14, 1968) who is an American writer and journalist. He is currently the Beijing correspondent for The New Yorker and a contributor to National Geographic. He has previously written for the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, and other American newspapers and magazines. He is best known for his two books on China: River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (2001), a Kiriyama Prize-winning book about his experiences in two years as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching English in China, and Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China’s Past and Present (2006), a collection of journalistic stories he wrote living in Beijing. His stories are about ordinary people’s lives in China and are not politically themed.

In 1996, he joined the Peace Corps and spent the next two years teaching English at a local college in Fuling, China. Since 1999, he has lived in Beijing as a freelance writer.

New York Times Article

By SHAILA DEWAN

Published: April 29, 2008

LOS ANGELES — When the time came for the smiling Tibetan monk at the front of the University of Southern California lecture hall to answer questions, the Chinese students who packed the audience for the talk last Tuesday had plenty to lob at their guest:

…….

As the monk tried to rebut the students, they grew more hostile. They brandished photographs and statistics to support their claims. “Stop lying! Stop lying!” one young man said. A plastic bottle of water hit the wall behind the monk, and campus police officers hustled the person who threw it out of the room.

Scenes like this, ranging from civil to aggressive, have played out at colleges across the country over the past month, as Chinese students in the United States have been forced to confront an image of their homeland that they neither recognize nor appreciate. Since the riots last month in Tibet, the disrupted Olympic torch relays and calls to boycott the opening ceremony of the Games in Beijing, Chinese students, traditionally silent on political issues, have begun to lash out at what they perceive as a pervasive anti-Chinese bias.

Last year, there were more than 42,000 students from mainland China studying in the United States, an increase from fewer than 20,000 in 2003, according to the State Department.

……..

As the U.S.C. session wound to a close, the organizer, Lisa Leeman, a documentary film instructor, pleaded for a change in tone. “My hope for this event, which I don’t totally see happening here, is for people on both, quote, sides to really hear each other and maybe learn from each other,” Ms. Leeman said. “Are there any genuine questions that don’t stem from a political point of view, that are really not here to be on a soap box?”

At that moment, the bottle hit the wall

Read the full article here.

How did China learn how to spin Tibet?

From Salon.com

By Andrew Sullivan

"Trust a public relations professional living in Beijing to write by far the best analysis I've seen of the Olympic-size mess that China has created for itself through ... [Continue reading this entry]

Joe, a gregarious Dai tour guide who hangs out at the tourist haunts looking for business invited me to join him and his family and friends, including a young French couple, at the new BBQ restaurants on the road along ... [Continue reading this entry]

If there is anything a foreigner knows about China, it is that he or she knows that she knows nothing. Today an American woman went to the Blind Massage School for accupuncture...but they don't do accupuncture on foreigners. She doesn't ... [Continue reading this entry]

Already, one-third of China's land mass is desert and it is losing 1500 square acres more a year to overgrazing, deforestation, urban sprawl and draught. Looking out the window of my plane from Beijing to Kunming, for the ... [Continue reading this entry]

Yesterday an older woman from Ireland and I tried to find the Night Market at the end of the bridge over the Mekong River where you used to be able to get great BBQ meat cooked over coal fires. ... [Continue reading this entry]

I have not been able to access Wikipedia or the external links to Blogspot and Bootsnall blogs since I have been in China. My daughter-in-law who lives in Beijing says that she often can access Wikipedia by going to ... [Continue reading this entry]

Too cold to do anything in Kunming so am flying out today to Jinghong in the south of China where it is reportedly warm. Was in Jinghong in the tropical Xishuangbanna Region in December 2004 when it was much warmer than this ... [Continue reading this entry]

Hard to believe I was in Beijing for two weeks. But you know what they say about stinking guests if they stay too long. So today I flew to Kunming in Yunnan Province in the south ... [Continue reading this entry]

This week Josh and I went to the Beijing Exhibition which is a miniature replica of the city in a huge building. Josh says they have one of these in every major city. Very well done! Then we ... [Continue reading this entry]

The two most impressive Olympic venues are the National Aquatics Center or simply the "Water Cube" and the "Bird's Nest." The "Water Cube," a palatial structure with an area of 80,000 sq meters that is white in the daytime and blue ... [Continue reading this entry]

Chinese New Year's Eve Wednesday February 6 2008. Words cannot do justice to the fireworks we viewed across the city from the rooftop of the Hilton Hotel at midnight so I will just show you here. It was so ... [Continue reading this entry]

Last Friday I went to the Yew Chung International School of Beijing with Amy, my daughter-in-law. Seventy five years ago an optimistic young woman, Madame Tsang Chor-hang, barely graduated from a teacher's school, emerged from a calamitous time ... [Continue reading this entry]

In the airport, while waiting for my luggage to show up, I scanned the crowd of people in the waiting area and had no trouble spotting Josh...three heads above all others. Eye candy for me! This is the first time ... [Continue reading this entry]

Arrived in Guangzhou (pronounced guan-jo) from Hong Kong yesterday on a sleek new train. I had no idea where the baggage area was. Had paid as much for the baggage as I did my ticket! Then, as I emerged from ... [Continue reading this entry]

Email from my son who is chef de cuisine in one of the restaurants in the Hilton Hotel in Beijing...to his friends and family: On Nov 19, 2007, at 5:24 PM, Ryan Goetz wrote: Happy Thanksgiving! I write this now because in two ... [Continue reading this entry]

My one year visa in Mexico expires August 8. After visiting my son Greg in Las Vegas I should be back in Oregon by the middle of August...driving from Oaxaca to Queretaro to pick up my friend Patty who ... [Continue reading this entry]

My sons and daughters-in-law, Luk, Doug, Josh and Amy on Koh Samui in Thailand for a week. Bob, their dad, took the picture. Doug and Luk live on Koh Samui. Greg, in Las Vegas, and I, of course, ... [Continue reading this entry]

Found a hilarious travel article on Bootnall today about the luxury tax...or dual pricing for foreigners as it is called: The Luxury Tax - Asia, Europe, South America By: Adam Jeffries Schwartz The following is a guide to how the luxury tax is ... [Continue reading this entry]