China's Basketball Brawls: Aggression vs. Etiquette on the Courts and on the Road

August 23, 2011

I'm writing this entry in appreciation of fellow China scholar and Dartmouth alum Victor Mair's analysis posted on the MCLC e-list (see below) of the recent basketball game between the Georgetown Hoyas and Bayi Rockets, which ended in an orgy of violence involving the players and the mostly Chinese audience. It strikes me that the dark reading of this event by some Western media outlets e.g. "Basketball Brawl Symbolized Growing U.S.-China Tensions" goes a bit too far. Mair's analysis, putting the game into context with other similar events, has much greater explanatory value.

On Reading Peter Hessler’s latest book, Country Driving

July 30, 2010

I first heard about Peter Hessler several years ago, when his first book River Town, the story of his experience living in a town along the Yangzi River, became widely known. At that time I had little interest in reading the book, having already lived in China for several years and having just earned a PhD in Chinese history from Columbia. At that point a book about a young American “discovering” China for the first time was not high on my list of China readings. Been there, done that was the thought in my mind. Perhaps others among us “China heads” felt the same way.

Beijing’s Olympic-sized traffic problem

January 5, 2007

Beijing is investing in public transportation before the Games, but experts are more worried about the transit crisis they will face after the Olympic torch has left town. Alex Pasternack asks how China’s capital can beat the sprawl.