After enduring a rigorous, yearlong application process, Wu Qiong, 22, was admitted as a member of the Chinese Communist Party. The selection committee responsible for Wu’s university, the Beijing-based China Institute of Defense, Science and Technology, deemed her “morally righteous, loyal to the Communist Party, and a sharp thinker.” Wu was appointed to head the Women's Department of the student union before graduating in 2007. Though she is still a member of the Communist Party, Wu says that politics bore her and she wants to work for a foreign company someday.
Streetball at two of China’s major universities is a lot like how streetball in America was in the 1990s. Back then, the baddest move in the NBA was Tim Hardaway’s “Killer Crossover.” Playing pickup at two schools, one in Xian and the other in Hangzhou, the meanest moves I encountered were a well-played stutter step and a driving-hanging-jumper, both effective in their own right.
“Everything for the peasant!,” proclaims village head Ding Jingang, as trailed by his entourage, he strides down the main road of Tihucun, a rural community located in Shaanxi province in central China.
Liu Xiaome, 33, came to Beijing nine years ago from Anhui province. Today she works as a maid cleaning homes for 10 yuan, or about $1.50, per hour. Liu’s son is back home in the care of her mother and older sister.
Xin Men Tang Chun, or “New Door Front Village,” is a dusty slum on Beijing’s western fringe that is now home to hundreds of migrant laborers.
