culture

China’s Change – The Greatest Show on Earth by Hugh Peyman The West has lost its way. Post-Brexit Britain wants to ‘take back control’ and Trump’s American wants to ‘Make America Great Again’. Western countries are refusing to change and adapt to a modern world, harping back to an idealised bygone era. Western politics has been dominated by rash decisions and short-term thinking and distributed in fast slogans and quick …

Eve Baker of travel agency Beiwei55 discusses changing Chinese travel habits in a post-Brexit world and the importance of brand Britain Have you seen a rise in the number of Chinese tourists coming to the UK? Since we started in 2014 there has been a notable rise, particularly last year after the Brexit vote when the pound plummeted. Things have calmed down a bit since but the market is still …

A new app created with the help of Ernest Hemingway’s great-granddaughter is being translated into Chinese to help another generation of Hemingway fans appreciate the great master The American Bar in London’s Savoy Hotel has seen American icons such as Marilyn Monroe and F Scott Fitzgerald prop up the bar. The Moon Walk cocktail was created here, the first drink that Neil Armstrong sipped on his return from the moon, …

China’s livestreaming stars are earning millions in a new social media revolution, writes Tom Pattinson ‘Influencers’ are people who have wide followings on social media platforms like Instagram or YouTube. They are people who can make serious money from posting branded content to their legions of followers. The majority are pop stars, reality TV personalities or supermodels, and brands pay thousands of dollars for them to showcase their products. The …

China’s Asian Dream: Empire Building Along the New Silk Road by Tom Miller Long-time China resident, writer and journalist Tom Miller spent three years travelling around Asia along the various Belt and Road corridors to report from the front line on the effects, costs and consequences of China’s Belt and Road initiative. In this excellent book, he manages to bring together China’s great ambitions for economic expansion and, as the …

With China’s increasing prominence on the global stage, Kerry Brown thinks it’s time for a new cross-cultural dialogue One of the frustrations of dealing with China in the decade after it entered the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2001 was the ways in which, almost daily, the People’s Republic was clearly an emerging economic superpower but one that continued to act diplomatically like it belonged to the middle ranks. The …

A number of Beijing’s most exciting bar and restaurant streets have been bricked up and shut down in recent months. A few pretty streets might appease the authorities but it won’t attract visitors, writes Tom Pattinson Something strange has been happening in Beijing’s backstreets and alleyways in recent months. Piles of bricks appear by the side of the street – an ominous sign of things to come. After the bricks, …