If you ask Norton Juster, the hallmark of a literary career is a childhood spent in boredom. After all, Charlotte Brontë and her sisters grew up in an isolated Yorkshire parish house. Robert Louis Stevenson spent much of his youth as a virtual shut-in. As for Juster himself? “I grew up before television, no computers,… [Read more…]
July 3, 2011
This summer, the girl scooping your ice cream or ringing you up at McDonald’s might not be your average teen on summer break. Even as U.S. youth struggle to find employment, thousands of students from China are likewise vying for a chance at that quintessential experience: an American summer job. And, like Zhou Pin, they’re… [Read more…]
June 17, 2011
If all goes as the government plans, this summer, China’s top blockbuster won’t be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—it’ll be a two-hour propaganda film based on the Communist Party’s history. It’s not taking any chances, either. Here on the mainland, the government has delayed the release of expected Hollywood chart toppers like Cars 2 and Transformers… [Read more…]
January 7, 2011
Jin-Xing Ma’s apartment has a new hat. And a five-layered coat. Standing in her living room, her trim frame ensconced in a purple sweater, Ma is effusive about her home’s new wardrobe. Here in the China’s northeast, where winter temperatures plummet to -40ºF, cities are getting serious about giving old, drafty buildings a face-lift. Last… [Read more…]
November 13, 2010
It’s dusk and the main street of a small town in Sichuan province is crowded with children on their way home from school and people shopping at small stores. The gloom and looming dark green mountains that wrap around the town lend it an ominous air. Even more unsettling is the name of this place,… [Read more…]
November 4, 2009
Among the Washington-based passel of higher-education lobbyists — universities, banks and student lenders — the United States Students Association (USSA) is an anomaly: a student-run organization advocating for students. Tucked away just north of fastidious K Street, its office has the motley feel of a college dorm, if an exceedingly well-organized one. Whiteboards cataloging their goals… [Read more…]
June 30, 2009
On first approach, Yunxiao seems like any other Chinese backwater caught in uneasy industrial transition. Faded advertisements line the streets downtown, where motorcyclists wearing bamboo-frond hats determinedly vie for passengers in a riot of honking. A cheerful red banner in the city center exhorts citizens to develop the local economy — and yet the message… [Read more…]
January 30, 2009
The downstairs study was in shambles that morning, but the maid denied she’d been anywhere inside. A line of footprints muddied the wall surrounding the yard; still, as he stared groggily at the scene, Carl Risheim had trouble comprehending it. To be sure, as a former law enforcement trainer in Colombia, Risheim had seen his… [Read more…]
October 19, 2008
Here in California, it’s possible to pass within a mile of the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex and never once suspect it’s there. East of the Palos Verdes Hills, the port’s surrounding warehouses easily obscure the mass of steamers that daily arrive studded with stacks of containers bearing international cargo. Yet the complex is the… [Read more…]
September 10, 2008
It was an afternoon in May when Bill Spiers got the call. As financial aid director at Florida’s Tallahassee Community College, he’d been expecting it for some time now. “Loan crisis goes to college,” CNN blared. “Credit crisis hits students,” The Boston Globe ran. “Bill?” It was the local Chase representative on the line: “I… [Read more…]
November 8, 2011
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