Exporting Chinese Acrobats
Chinese acrobats have been impressing circus-goers at shows like Cirque du Soleil since the 1980s. How did these gymnastic marvels make their way to the West?
A Messy Divorce: The Sino-Soviet Split
The ideological disagreements between two nations shattered the idea of monolithic communism and re-arranged the chessboard of the Cold War.
From Bond Maid to Pioneering Chinese Businesswoman
Raised as a servant girl, Lai Ngan grew up to become a cigar maker, own a boarding house, and run grocery stores in the American Southwest.
The I Ching in America
Europeans translated the Chinese Book of Changes in the nineteenth century, but the philosophy really took off in the West after 1924.
Mao Zedong: Reader, Librarian, Revolutionary?
Before becoming leader of communist China, Mao was an ardent library patron and then worked as a library assistant.
China’s Historic Preservation Challenges
Beijing’s hutongs are disappearing quickly. Is there a way create safe housing, preserve historic buildings, and meet the city's financial needs?
Lost in Translation: Ezra Pound’s Imagism and the Angel Island Poets
As Pound was making a splash with “translations” of Chinese poetry, immigrants from China were etching poems of despair into the walls of a detention facility.
Jade Snow Wong’s Cold War World Tour
In 1953, the US Department of State sent ceramicist and author Constance Wong—known professionally as Jade Snow Wong—on a four-month goodwill tour of Asia.
Opium’s History in China
Opium has been used as a medicinal and recreational substance in China for centuries, its shifting meanings tied to class and national identity.
The Allure of Chinese Medicine
Capitalizing on stereotypes earned Chinese-American practitioners patients, but it also helped keep them confined to the margins of American society.