Kaiser' Kuo's column in the December issue of That's Beijing is a funny, pithy parody of much Western journalism about China:

Fill in the Blanks

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China offers journalists new to Beijing this useful template for your first files. It has been used with great success by big-name reporters hundreds of times! Just fill in the blank with the appropriate phenomena, supply some names for sources, and voila! Instant China story.

_________ Comes to China

BEIJING, November 18, 2004 - China is in the throes of another 'cultural revolution,' but this time it's not politics, but a growing class of hipoisie leading the charge. The latest western fad to breach the fabled Great Wall? (FILL IN THE BLANK), which many are calling the most revolutionary thing to hit China since Mickey Mouse.

It's a revolution in cool," says (PROFESSOR), who teaches contemporary Chinese cultural studies at (UNIVERSITY). "It's not for your Average Zhou," he quips, "but ______ is really catching on with young people."

"It's all the rage these days," says (CHINESE NAME), who runs a fashionable shop specializing in _____ near the stylish Sanlitun Bar District, where it's not uncommon to see young women wearing makeup, western-style blue jeans, and even sporting dyed hair. Young couples hold hands and even show bolder signs of affection on occasion - behavior that has prudish, older stalwarts shaking their heads.

Read the whole thing on the That's Beijing website here.