Tea Leaf Nation

Foreigners, watch out. Beijing police have sent a shot across the bow of the city’s estimated 120,000 non-Chinese residents, some of whom are in the country illegally. After a video of a British man apparently sexually assaulting a Chinese woman caught fire on Weibo, Beijing police have announced a campaign to “clean up” (清理) unwelcome [...]

Cars have changed China. As Peter Hessler discussed in his book Country Driving, published in 2011, the developments of China’s roads and its driving culture are in many ways an apt microcosm for China’s development as a whole. It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that a 10-year graphic retrospective on China’s roads by the Chinese website [...]

What’s this image? This photograph depicts beloved Taiwanese band Mayday (五月天) playing to a rapturous reception in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium on May 5 as part of their Nowhere World Tour 2012 (or 诺亚方舟, which translates literally as “Noah’s Ark”).  With over 33,000 re-posts, it is Sina Weibo’s most viral image of May 7, 2012 [...]

“The PM2.5 measure published by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing is 252 to 302, but today’s average from the Ministry of Environmental Protection was less than 100. Why is the difference so huge? Who should I trust?” So tweeted Li Ningning (@李_宁宁), a product manager at a Beijing software company, on Sina Weibo, China’s Twitter. [...]

When it comes to inventing meddlesome regulation, Beijing is a cut above. Chinese people have already been told they must have their ID’s at the ready in order to patronize Internet bars, open an account on Weibo, China’s Twitter, and buy a train ticket. Now, some must do the same merely to purchase knives. On [...]

Following our well-received series Who’s Who on Weibo, Tea Leaf Nation is pleased bring you a second series discussing some of the popular memes and terms of art in the Chinese social media. Please email us at editors@tealeafnation.com if you would like to suggest a new term to add to the list. Please see Part [...]