China’s Renaissance man
Zhang Heng was a genuine polymath whose achievements in science, mathematics, cartography, literature, and the arts make him a towering figure in the popular Chinese imagination.
Alex Colville
Alex Colville is a freelance journalist whose work has featured in The Financial Times, The Economist, and Foreign Policy Magazine, among others. He won a SOPA Award for his work with The World of Chinese in Beijing.
More Posts
When ballet became revolutionary: Xue Jinghua and ‘The Red Detachment of Women’
Xue Jinghua, China's ballerina extraordinaire, cut a striking figure in red. Her role as the wronged peasant Wu Qinghua in "The Red Detachment of Women" ensured her place in modern China's cultural lore, even as she performed during a time when all creative projects were for the advancement of the collective.
From folk tale to national treasure: The story of the Butterfly Lovers
How Western music and traditional Chinese opera was synthesized to create one of China's most famous orchestral works.
What’s so funny, Yue Minjun?
"I cannot recall any event that has shaped my political views," the artist Yue Minjun has said, "but politics is everywhere in Chinese life, like the meal you eat every day." And what does Yue's art — among the most recognizable art coming out of China today — say about life and politics?
Mei Lanfang, China’s greatest stage performer
Mei Lanfang was more than just a performer with exceptional poise, a beautiful falsetto trill, and a sharp jaw-line. He helped rework the genre of Peking Opera into what it is today, an intangible cultural heritage and source of national pride.
Hell’s bittersweet end: Meng Po, goddess of forgetfulness
Meng Po, who resides in the underworld, could remove all the bad memories a soul might possess, giving little thought to skills wiped or knowledge of loved ones lost forever.
Liu Shaoqi, the Chinese president turned ‘capitalist roader’
Liu Shaoqi was president of China, the handpicked successor to Mao. But he was a bit too bold, too truthful — and flew too close to the sun.
Putting China back on track: Zhan Tianyou, father of China’s railroad
China has the longest high-speed rail network in the world and the second longest network of total railways. But only a century ago, the country actually feared the locomotive, believing it a devilish tool of foreigner powers. Zhan Tianyou helped change that perception.
Modernizing tradition: Shen Congwen and his literary classics
Shen Congwen was an author of the people, writing about everyday life in rural villages and peppering his stories with regional flavor. He was denounced during the Cultural Revolution and then forgotten, but rediscovered in the 1980s — and would have become China’s first recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature if only he’d lived a few more months.