Category Archives: China General

Anchluss or ANZAC? — A Solution for Taiwan

Thor May Bris­bane, Aus­tralia 12 Jan­u­ary 2012 In the minds of China’s rulers, past and present, there has only ever been one pos­si­ble view about the future of Tai­wan. For a mul­ti­tude of rea­sons — strate­gic, eco­nom­ic, eth­nic, lin­guis­tic, his­tor­i­cal … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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Snow Flower & The Secret Fan

Snow Flower & The Secret Fan  com­ments by Thor May When Wen­di Deng from Chi­na mag­i­cal­ly fell into the pan-nation­al world of inter­na­tion­al busi­ness and mar­ried the media bil­lion­aire Rupert Mur­doch, (who had aban­doned Aus­tralia for the same state­less realm … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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Bye-bye China

Farewell speech – Zhengzhou, Chi­na – Decem­ber 2010 – Thor May Forty years ago I was work­ing in a large gov­ern­ment office in Syd­ney. There were many desks in the room, and my desk was the least impor­tant. At the … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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Somebody Else’s Problem — Decision Making in China

Once long ago I was inter­viewed for a job as lan­guage direc­tor of the Defence Coop­er­a­tion Lan­guage School in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia. (The place pre­tends to teach Eng­lish in three months or so to exchange mil­i­tary offi­cers from places like Indone­sia). … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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The Big Parade At Dragon Lake

The deal was 8am. I’m a just-in-time guy, but here she was knock­ing on the door at 7:15. Jeez. Can I offer you some break­fast? We sat look­ing at each oth­er across a big wood­en cof­fee table, the gold­en drapes … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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The Cigarette

Win­ter morn­ing light had bro­ken clear and cold, so ear­ly that night’s shad­ows were still about and a wispy moon hung in the sky. A small col­lec­tion of street food ven­dors had already parked their hand carts by the col­lege … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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Mind Games Under Heaven

All the world art mad but thou and I. So it seems. The col­lec­tive mind of peo­ples as nations expressed either through the bal­lot box or by the voice of the emper­or ( L’Etat c’est moi) seems errat­ic at best … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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Choose Your Game

On the wrong side of the rail­way tracks in Zhengzhou city, cen­tral Chi­na, you can find some ugly old con­crete class­rooms built around a small paved sports ground. It is a rail­way tech­ni­cal col­lege to train nurs­es and logis­tics stu­dents, … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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Australia Blue (cheerfully ripping off Mao Zedong, “Snow”)

Cen­tre coun­try scene: A thou­sand miles of desert, Ten thou­sand miles of shim­mer­ing heat. In and out the Dead Heart, Only one great vast­ness; Up and down the Dia­man­ti­na, Sand tor­rents stopped and stilled. Hills dance like rain­bow ser­pents, Mirages … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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The Earthquake

The earth­quake: I was run­ning back to my apart­ment from the class­room for some­thing, and didn’t feel a thing. The oth­er for­eign teacher here stag­gered out of her apart­ment and said she thought she was dying. I told her to … Con­tin­ue read­ing

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