Must-read China news by Danwei

The China Daily:

The Ministry of Civil Affairs will cooperate with 18 government departments to crack down on child begging this year, Vice-Minister Dou Yupei told a news conference on Tuesday.

"Premier Wen Jiabao has urged the Ministry of Civil Affairs to submit advice to the State Council on helping children who are begging on the streets and are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation," Dou said.

"But the premier never criticized us for not responding positively to the anti-trafficking campaign launched on micro blogs."

Yu Jianrong, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the initiator of the campaign, in January called for netizens to take snapshots of children they saw begging in the street and of other children they thought might have been kidnapped.

Posted by Jeremy Goldkorn at 3:14 PM | Permalink

Bookslut interviews Xinran:

I realize the reason I go back to China is because I can’t be cut off from my roots, from my country; I have to go back. I go for the connections with the people, to feel them, to share with them what they want, see, think. That sort of connection brings about transformation because your body becomes a bridge to those connections.

Sometimes my own life feels kind of futile, but I think that if I do this, write these stories, then these girls can have something of their moms. You can’t believe how much these girls give me… I give them something tiny -- maybe a piece of paper -- and they’re so happy … when I go back two years later, they still have the paper that they’ve been keeping as if it were a precious doll. I can’t forget these girls, I can’t let them go. They trust me, they trust me with their letters, their stories.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 9:59 AM | Permalink

Sinopop translates an essay by revolutionary writer Ding Ling written for Women's Day, 1942:

I myself am a woman, and I therefore understand the failings of women better than most, but I also have a deeper understanding of their suffering. Women are incapable of transcending the age they live in, of being perfect, or being like iron. They are incapable of resisting all social temptations, or silent oppressions, each has a history of blood and tears, they have experienced great emotions—in elation as in depression, whether engaged in the lone battle of life or drawn into the humdrum stream of life. This is even truer of the female comrades who come to Yenan, and I therefore have much sympathy for those fallen women classified as criminals. What is more, I hope that men, especially those in positions of leadership, and women themselves will consider the mistakes women commit in their social context. It would be better if there were less empty theorizing and more talk about real problems, so that theory and practice are not divorced, and if each Communist Party member were more responsible for his own moral conduct.

Posted by Joel Martinsen at 6:31 PM | Permalink