China Digital Times (CDT) » Culture & the Arts

The specter of arrest has made Halloween extra spooky this year. In Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Wuhan, Halloween revelry has been marred by strict police curfews, the detention of costume-clad party...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/10/censors-authorities-spooked-by-halloween-celebrations/

Caving to online male backlash that included a threatened boycott, Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com announced that it would scrap its November 11 “Singles Day” shopping festival collaboration ...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/10/e-commerce-giant-jd-com-scraps-singles-day-collaboration-with-comedian-yang-li-after-male-backlash/

Several recent reports and articles highlight the experience of those in China who seek to leave the country in search of better opportunities or greater freedom abroad. On Wednesday, the Pew Res...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/10/passport-restrictions-on-public-employees-and-chinas-new-cultural-emigres/

The People’s Republic of China celebrated its 75th anniversary on Tuesday, October 1. The anniversary is both political spectacle and the advent of a week-long holiday marked by decidedly apoli...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/10/as-prc-outlasts-soviet-union-xi-jinping-warns-of-stormy-waves/

Whether in Hong Kong or Europe, museums that showcase exhibitions related to China sometimes succumb to Xi Jinping’s warning for the arts to foster “correct” viewpoints of history and cultu...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/10/french-museums-waver-between-tibet-and-xizang-amid-uproar-over-chinese-influence/

While China’s athletes won glory in Paris at this year’s Olympics and Paralympics, there was widespread agreement on Chinese social media that the country’s reporters did not. Bloggers a...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/09/translations-real-reporters-are-rarer-than-pandas-we-cant-send-them-off-to-clown-around-at-the-olympics-3/

The plight of China’s delivery drivers is front-of-mind for the Chinese public. In August, CDT translated an account of one courier’s death in the summer heat, while a viral photograph of a M...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/09/poem-on-the-death-of-a-delivery-driver-a-man-is-not-a-steed-nor-a-machine/

The Chinese government’s recent detentions of two outspoken critics—visual artist Gao Zhen and citizen journalist Zhang Zhan—highlight the continuing suppression of free speech and the shri...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/09/detentions-of-artist-gao-zhen-citizen-journalist-zhang-zhan-highlight-continuing-suppression-of-free-speech-in-china/

The violent repression of the 1989 student protests scarred Chinese society. The campaign to purge “two-faced” protest sympathizers that followed was similarly painful. Yet some of the greate...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/09/accused-tiananmen-informants-silence-reveals-enduring-public-secrecy-around-1989/

Microblogging platform Weibo is cracking down on speech about crackdowns on speech. In a weekly “safety” digest published to an official Weibo administrators’ account, the platform announce...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/08/weibo-cracks-down-on-posts-about-weibo-crackdowns/

A recent scandal involving the organized theft and trafficking of thousands of corpses that were later processed into bone-graft material for dental procedures has prompted horror among the Chine...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/08/quote-of-the-day-when-we-die-our-bodies-are-plundered-for-parts/

When the result of a sporting match becomes a foregone conclusion and lesser players are subbed in to run out the clock, announcers often term it “garbage time.” The latest term to sweep the ...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/08/word-of-the-week-garbage-time-of-history-%E5%8E%86%E5%8F%B2%E7%9A%84%E5%9E%83%E5%9C%BE%E6%97%B6%E9%97%B4-lishi-de-laji-shijian/

CCTV commentators covering the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics fell silent during a skit hinting at a ménage à trois, a scene inspired by the great French writer Victor Hugo’s lin...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/07/cctv-broadcast-falls-silent-during-queer-scenes-in-paris-olympics-opening-ceremony/

As the Paris Olympics holds its star-studded opening ceremony, amid transportation disruptions caused by coordinated arson attacks on three French high-speed trains, Chinese social media interest...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/07/quote-of-the-day-olympic-edition-theyre-enjoying-themselves-at-our-expense-and-they-expect-us-to-applaud/

On the Chinese internet, wall-to-wall state media coverage of the Chinese Olympic delegation’s departure for the 2024 Paris Games has been met with a shrug. With 405 Chinese athletes slated to ...

https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2024/07/weibo-reacts-to-the-paris-olympics-with-a-shrug/