When I first went to China (way back in 1984), foreigners were something of a novelty. At the time, I was working in the city of Zhengzhou, in Henan Province. I was one of perhaps a dozen foreigners in the city of 2+ million people, which meant that we could draw crowds of curious onlookers […]
Measures, Counter-Measures, and Filial Piety
The Chinese have a saying: “shang you zheng ce, xia you dui ce.” A fairly literal translation is “the top adopts measures and the bottom adopts counter-measures. A more colloquial way of putting it is “the leaders make the policies and the people find a way around them.” This plays itself out in a thousand […]
