Tea Leaf Nation

Is it a New Years’ miracle? An elaborate media charade? A Greek tragedy? Microbloggers on Weibo, China’s Twitter, diverge sharply on the story of Xiao Yanqin, the betrayed young wife who reportedly commited suicide on Christmas day, only to appear, very much alive, for a January 1 interview on Beijing television after her “resurrection” was [...]

If you asked Chinese people to name the most outspoken media outlet in China, half would probably say the Southern Media Group and the other half Caixin Media. Not bad for newcomer Caixin, founded in 2010 by Ms. Hu Shuli, the Iron Lady of Chinese journalism, who has been named in the Wall Street Journal’s [...]

Cantonese netizens reacted angrily to new regulations requiring that, starting on March 1, 2012, all television, radio and even Internet broadcasts in Guangdong province, one of China’s most prosperous, must use Mandarin Chinese instead of Cantonese.  The two languages have much vocabulary in common but are nevertheless nearly mutually unintelligible due to extensive differences in pronunciation. [...]