4/24/2008

National Geographic on China

The current issue of National Geographic focuses on China. The photos, in the magazine's style, are stunning, but the magazine also features pieces by a noted batch of China writers, including two pieces by Peter Hessler (on migration and economic change), Leslie Chang (on the lives of the children of China's growing middle class), Amy Tan (on village life and traditional singing in Dimen, Guizhou), Ted Fishman (on Beijing's Olympic construction), and Brook Larmer (on Yellow River pollution). See more at the National Geographic website.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hi, Ms. Brownell! I am a Chinese student. I just learned your works from the story by Ian Johnson on the WSJ website, and am really impressed by your efforts in understanding China. I really hope that both Chinese and Westerners can make more efforts to understand each other before judging them. Hope I can read your books some day. Best wishes~
Sandy Chen

The China Beat said...

Sandy:

Thank you for your comment and for reading our blog. We have seventeen writers and academics who write pieces for us, so if you would like to read those pieces written specifically by Susan Brownell, please click on the link for the 2008 Olympics on the left side of our main page.

--Kate M-H

Robert said...

First of all, I do appreciate what you all are doing with this site. I've just started to read through it, as I also came across it do to Ms. Brownwell's interview the other day. I think what she's doing is wonderful.

I did want to mention, as pertains to the China issue of NG, one of the maps in the issue has caused quite an uproar in Taiwan, due to the fact that they show Taiwan as a part of China. Several people have been in contact with the editors of NG, who have given a pretty good defense of the move. However, in the end, they expressed the belief that the US's official position on Taiwan is that it's a part of China, whereas, last time I checked, the US' position on Taiwan is that it's status is "undetermined."

You can read a lot of the debate on the NG editor's blog here:

http://tinyurl.com/4w7or2

Most of the confusion stems from the fact that there was a disclaimer on one map, but not the other.

Enjoy.