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.
For some, Wu Zetian is a brilliant statesman slandered by Confucian misogyny; for others, she’s a blood-soaked usurper who schemed her way to power. China's only empress left behind quite the legacy — and a lot of bodies.
Wang Yibo is a 23-year-old from Henan whose raging popularity means everyone wants a piece of him, from multinational corporations to the state, all hoping he'll shill a product or promote core socialist values. His fans won't leave him alone, either.
The Hurun China Rich List annually recognizes China’s wealthiest. This year’s Top 10 includes familiar faces, mostly self-made billionaires who came of age when the country was poor. Who are they?
Xu Beihong was a modernizer, believing that artists needed to have ideas and stop relying on imitation. But was Xu as guilty of imitation — of conservative Western art, in his case — as the Chinese artists he criticized?
What are the ingredients of a bad emperor? This week, a special edition of Chinese Lives takes a look at the characteristics of three particularly bad rulers.
China's Kitchen God is that of the hearth in Daoism and Chinese folk culture, smiling benevolently down from his place above the kitchen stove. But his appearance belies his true power.
Classic femme fatale, or a figure of doomed love? A decadent diva who sowed the seeds of the Tang’s downfall, or a woman whose tragic death deserves celebration?
Lang Ping is China’s Michael Jordan, the most famous, celebrated, and accomplished Chinese athlete of her generation.
He's the god of builders and contractors, known for creating a long line of products that helped the common people. Did he actually exist? It doesn't matter — he now lends his name to everything from stools to idioms.