Lijia Zhang's Blog, page 26
April 3, 2021
a canoeing trip
Spring is here and I feel so alive! This Good Friday turned out to be a really good Friday when I had my first outing – a canoeing trip along the canals in Ash Vale. What a sweet delight to be on the crystal clear water! The sun was smiling gold; birds were circling under the blue sky – plenty of them as there’s a nature reserve by the canal, and goose and ducks are swimming about. In the bright light, the water sparkled like fish scale. Loved every minute of the more than 3 hours trip.
March 18, 2021
female political participation in China lags behind
My commentary piece in today’s South China Morning Post. While the authorities are boasting that China saw more women lawmakers and legislators during this year’s ‘two sessions’, China’s female political participation actually lags behind many other countries. Here’s why.
February 10, 2021
February 4, 2021
My radio essay for Radio 4
At last, I made it to From Our Own Correspondent! Radio’s 4’s high-profile current affair programme is my favorite. It offers a chance for BBC’s foreign correspondents around the world to reflect on a certain event or issue. Compared to other programmes, it is far more personal and literary. I’ve long had my eye on it, but wasn’t sure if I was qualified to file a piece. Recently I finally gathered courage and wrote a proposal to the producer, and she said yes. After rounds of edits, my piece came out today! It is a humorous account how learning English has changed my life and how I am upset about the ongoing debate of downgrading English in China.
It was a hard-won battle. It took so long to record it, because, well, my English is still not good enough, I had trouble to pronounce certain words, for example, – lol, after all these years. See the picture. The thing under the duvet is me, hunching over my computer, recording to my iPhone while trying to follow the instruction from the producer.
This morning, as I listened to the unfamiliar voice of mine, I felt I was up in the 9th heaven!
Here’s the link. I hope to win a laugh from you.
January 17, 2021
January 16, 2021
December 19, 2020
A guest on the BBC”s Weekend program
For once, I had to get up early this morning for BBC World Service’s Weekend program. It’s a two hour long news and current affair program from 6.30 to 8.30 am. It always has two guests, who comment on the events in the past week. I am one of the guests. And the other one is veteran journalist Frank Langfitt, NPR’s star correspondent who was their China correspondent. Incredibly, we used to be neighbors in Beijing. What a small world.
Here’s the link to the program.
December 1, 2020
my memoir
Looking at the photo, you would think that my memoir “Socialism is Great!” has been translated into Chinese. That’s not the case, but there’s a sweet story here.
Out of the blue, I received an email this morning from a Chinese guy named Cui Kai, who is a manager at a fast delivery company in Beijing. He loves my book so much that he took the trouble to translate it, printed out, bound it and gave a few copies to his family and friends to share.
He said he is more than ten years younger than me. So he didn’t know the part of history I described. He thanked me to enlighten him and to inspire him ‘lit the light in his heart’, in his words. What a morale boost on this cold wintery day?
I do have good news to report. The memoir will be translated into Spanish by an Argentina publisher, working in conjunction with a Spanish publisher. And it will be translated into German. So all the major European languages will be covered now!
November 24, 2020
November 19, 2020
Oped on China’s rising single population
Still being single? No worries. Join the boat.
See my latest oped in SCMP about the growing number of single people in China.
