|
Magazines
Chinese travel reading: women in prisonPosted by Joel Martinsen, August 8, 2006 2:13 PM
Traveling around China by bus or train can be a quite an ordeal. What better way to pass the time than by immersing yourself in a magazine or two? And what better subject matter than true stories of crimes and corruption?
Yes, for some reason, true crime magazines seem to be over-represented at newsstands in China's transit stations. Here's a list of magazines found at the Jilin City station last month:
They're all fairly similar in appearance - their layout is amateurish, their content unsourced, and their covers are loaded with provocative teasers that don't pan out inside. Illustrations are typically adult models or stills from Hong Kong Cat-III films. The magazine here, Modern Chinese Spies (中国现代特工), bills itself as "the most authoritative magazine of spies and intelligence," and claims to be published in Xi'an. Two things undermine this authoritativeness: first, the masthead page contains the shocking admission that "some of the articles in this magazine are from the Internet." Then there's the fact that the publication license listed inside, (CN44-1236), belongs to World Architecture Review (世界建筑导报), published out of Guangzhou, and the number on the back, (CN42-1003), belongs to Hubei Education. Since most of these aren't actually real magazines, the selection is constantly changing. Several years ago, it seemed that the titles in Jilin and Shenyang were all about women's prisons. Tastes have changed, perhaps.Or maybe it's just the format that's changed. The image at left comes from an unregistered newspaper, Stories of Women Prisoners (女囚实录), which my local newsstand has recently begun to offer alongside other trashy papers like "Bloody Cases" (which, in a nice touch, blurs the eyes of the models in its illustrations), "Legal Life," "Legal Digest," and "Law Stories." According to the stand's proprietor, "They all are brought in from outside the city. Most of them are printed by small presses in Hubei - these papers aren't allowed in Beijing." He didn't say what permitted him to sell them at his Beijing newsstand. Links and Sources
There are currently 0 Comments for Chinese travel reading: women in prison.
|
Partner Links
Jobs in China
Recent Comments
lyl on
The cult of a Super Girl
Jeremy Gol on
Danwei Canteen: Chestnut Chicken Stew
Gareth on
Gamble your life away in ZT Online
Inst on
The Mouse looms over Shanghai
Anonymous on
Giant Mao Zedong stands alone in the autumn cold
Joel Marti on
A centenarian monk reads the newspaper
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
![]() Recommended blogs and new media
Books on China
Xujun Eberlein's Apologies Forthcoming: Hong Kong's Blacksmith Books has published a short story collection by Xujun Eberlein.
Princess Der Ling: Two Years in the Forbidden City: Two years in the Forbidden City is largely a reminiscence of the minutiae of life for one of history's most powerful women, by one of her court attendants, a Manchu noble's daughter by the name of Der Ling.
Carl Crow's The Long Road Back to China: In 1939 Carl Crow - an American journalist, advertising executive and author who had lived in Shanghai for 25 years until forced out by the Japanese - travelled up the Burma Road from Rangoon to Chongqing on assignment for Liberty magazine - 'the most interesting assignment I have ever been given'.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ New Years Past: Other Spring Festivals by Geremie R. Barmé (2007.02): Sang Ye interviews two people about their experiences during Great Leap Forward-era Spring Festivals. Translated and annotated by Geremie R. Barmé. + Trend-spotting in online fiction (2007.06): An interview with Daniel Dan Fei (丹飞), publisher of Notes on Graverobbing (盗墓笔记), Rear Palace (后宫), and Those Ming Dynasty Things (明朝那些事). + China's 50 Most Beautiful People (2005.03): The Beijing News borrows a picture of Maggie Cheung from Cosmo for the cover of today's Entertainment insert, "50 Most Beautiful People in China". Ms. Cheung takes the top spot, with Takeshi Kaneshiro, Little S, Zhang Ziyi, and Liu Ye rounding out the top five in this exercise that is a conscious imitation of People magazine's yearly rundown.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky
or Feedburner |






