Inside-Out China
A Chinese immigrant's perspective on China
Site Owner: Xujun
Most Recent Posts from Inside-Out China
The New American Mother
(A personal essay about my early days in America)In pain, you know only your native language.The fetal monitor beside me showed a running curve, no pause between contractions. I was screaming in Chinese, my American husband told me later, but the language of pain did not need translation: the midwife hurried over to offer a painkiller. I refused; I did not want to risk my baby to any drug, no matter how safe they said it was.When the baby finally emerged, wet and squalling, the midwife encourage...Posted on 15 April 2013 | 3:44 pm
Reading: Harper's on Bo Xilai
For much of 2012, the year of China's political earthquake, I waited to read Harper's analysis of the Bo Xilai saga, but never got the chance. As a long-time subscriber, I'm glad to see a report this year, even if it's a bit late. In her informative article "The Unraveling of Bo Xilai – China loses a populist star," Lauren Hilgers provides balanced coverage of the divided public opinions on Bo, and convincingly shows how information unavailability helped to veil the fact that a Chinese p...Posted on 1 April 2013 | 12:56 am
Foreign Literature in China: Now and Then
In LARB: In the Wake of Finnegan: A Q & A with Xujun EberleinPosted on 25 February 2013 | 2:04 am
"Skylark": a Translated Story
(Note: This is a short story I translated for Pathlight issue No. 1, 2012, posted here with permission. I had not heard about author Jin Renshun before I got the assignment. Her writing is both beautiful and subtle, and I truly enjoyed translating the piece. I tried to be faithful to her original style and hope I've succeeded somewhat. – Xujun)Jin Renshun: Born in 1970 of Korean extraction, and now living in Changchun, Jin Renshun has published the novel Spring Fragrance, the...Posted on 22 February 2013 | 6:00 am
The Last "Red Guard"?
In my previous post, I distinguished two generations of Red Guards. The first generation, a disarray of factions who engaged in a great deal of violence from the summer of 1966 to 1968, were disbanded by the end of 1968 after the "Down to the Countryside" movement began on a large scale. This fact is pretty much clear. The nuance I was trying to spell out is about the second generation, which came into being when middle schools resumed classes in the fall of 1969 after a three-...Posted on 21 February 2013 | 3:55 pm
