Lijia Zhang's Blog, page 21
November 23, 2021
Measure for measure and Peng Shuai
In the wake of the Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai’s alleged sexual assault by a vice premier, Shakespeare’s play Measure of Measure seems more poignant. As I sat in the Shakespeare Globe, watching this powerful show, I thought to myself: things have not changed much. For centuries, powerful men have preyed on vulnerable young women. I applaud Peng’s courage to speak out, even though she knew the serious consequences. She described her action was like ‘cracking eggs against a rock’. I do hope that the international society to ensure that Peng will have her freedom back and will be allowed to continue her inspiring career. I am doing my bit by talking to the media.
commenting on Peng Shuai case for NYT
I’ve been quoted in this NYT piece about the tennis player Peng Shuai. The journalist who interviewed me said to me apologetically that the editor had trimmed my quotation. In any case, I was happy to comment on a topic I feel passionate about.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/world/asia/china-peng-shuai-metoo.html
October 28, 2021
a wordy essay
For many years now, I’ve been writing and publishing articles. They are not always literary, or not as literary as I’d like them to be, or perhaps the formats are not suitable for wordy prose. Here’s my latest piece for the New European, about how learning English has changed my life and how downgrading it in China is unwise. As I wrote the piece, I had the pleasure to indulge myself in a process that the Chinese terms as 推敲，deliberating over ‘push’ or ‘knock’.
October 25, 2021
My call to revive the death penalty debate
As the world has just celebrated World Day Against the Death Penalty, I published my opinion piece on the issue.
An English friend told me that even though it was outlawed in England in 1969, various surveys suggest that nearly half of the people still support it? Incredible!
Do let me know what’s the situation in your country regarding the death penalty. Thanks.
October 16, 2021
MeToo Movement four years on
Here’s a thoughtful piece looking at the current status of the #MeToo Movement, four years on. I am quoted here.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/10/15/women-in-china-are-waiting-for-meaningful-metoo-reforms
October 13, 2021
September 23, 2021
China’s legal system is failing the victims of sexual harassment
Xuanzi, the face of China’s #MeToo movement, lost her landmark case against a star presenter. I was so disappointed and angry. I totally believe in her story – she got so much to lose and so little to gain, but not the judge. Here’s my call to change the legal system that slants towards the alleged sexual aggressor
September 8, 2021
Romania
The Palace of the Parliament and the residence of Nicolae Ceaușescu
As someone who has grown up in a socialist country, I am naturally interested in communism and Communist leaders in other countries. While in Bucharest, I had a guided tour to the Palace of the Parliament, a Communism themed tour in town and I visited the former residence of Nicolae Ceausescu.
The Palace of the Parliament, also known as People’s House, is the seat of the Romanian Parliament and the second largest administration building in the world, after Pentagon. Constructed over 13 years, the building is in Socialist realist style, mixed with modern Neoclassical architectural elements.
Ceausescu launched the project, after being inspired by his trip to North Korea. To implement it, a large section of the old town, including churches, residential buildings and factories, were destroyed and 40,000 people had to be relocated. Familiar story？
To this day, the state has not released the precise cost of the building. The common belief was 3 billion USD at the time or 6 billion in today’s term, which makes it the most expensive administrative building in the world.
Cost was obviously not the concern of the former dictator. His family’s mansion in Bucharest doesn’t look like so opulent from outside, but it houses 80 luxuriously rooms decorated with chandeliers, Murano glasses, marbles and paintings, as well as a swimming pool, a solarium, a cinema, a garden with exotic plants.
Oh, well, may his fate – being shot by fire squad on Christmas Day in 1989 – serves as a lesson to other dictators.
August 30, 2021
Hoffman
Lost in Translation, a memoir by internationally renowned writer and academic Eva Hoffman, was published in 1989, way before the best-selling movie of the same title. It has nothing to do with a fading American film star in Tokyo. Rather, it is a remarkable personal story of Hoffman, a Jewish Polish’s emigrant in America, where she lost and remade her identity in a new land with a new language. Anyone who has gained a new language or a new identity can relate to her story, beautifully and thoughtfully told. It has recently been published in China. I had the great pleasure to dine with Eva herself in North London. What an inspiring life. Armed with a PhD from Harvard, she served as an editor for the New York Times for years and has published books in both fiction and non-fiction to great acclaim. And she was also a highly accomplished concert pianist. Please do check out her works.
July 7, 2021
gentle approach
Here’s my latest piece, urging China to take a more conciliatory approach, avoiding the use of hard terms such as ‘cracking heads and spill blood’ 头破血流as president Xi warned hostile foreign https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3139964/china-gentle-giant-would-win-more-hearts-wolf-warrior-diplomacy
I hope this won’t land me in hot waters.
