Category: Society and Culture
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The Optimal Starbucks Breakfast
Optimization is the millennial affliction. (There was a trenchant Buzzfeed essay a while back that delved into how this impulse drives our generation to burnout.) Since seeing that insight articulated in plain, stark language, I’ve been more conscious of its truth in my own life. Take today’s breakfast stop at the local Starbucks. I lived…
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On “Death of a Red Heroine” by Qiu Xiaolong
I mistook this novel for a murder mystery. It is that, nominally: Chief Inspector Chen Cao and Detective Yu of the Shanghai Police Bureau spend their time investigating the murder of Guan Hongying, a national model worker found dead in an obscure county canal. Chen and Yu dig for clues, interview witnesses, mull over theories about what…
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On “Citizenfour”
Last Thursday, I filed my last articles of 2016 for work. Buzzer-beaters, to be sure, but I celebrated all the same by putting on a movie. There was nothing remotely festive on my flash drive, it was a bit too late to dig up alternatives, and the US Congress’ Intelligence Committee had just released its…
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Defining Dictatorship
Last Friday, November 18, the family of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos secreted his body into the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery) for a long-contested burial. The Philippine National Police and the country’s armed forces secured the area, and a chopper from the national air force flew the strongman’s body down from Ilocos to…
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What’s the word?
From Peter Hessler’s Oracle Bones, which I also mentioned over here and which I’m still reading: “Peoples of color” sounded awkward if translated literally, so I used the standard Chinese term for minorities: shaoshu minzu. Of course, that was just as odd in English: “small-number ethnic groups.” Perhaps somewhere in the world there was a language that handled this issue…
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