Alex is an arts writer whose work has featured in The Economist and The Spectator.
Zhang Yiming, the founder and CEO of ByteDance — the $100 billion company that owns TikTok — is a 37-year-old self-made billionaire who always puts business interests and global ambitions first. But now he finds himself caught up in a U.S.-China political rivalry, battered by people on both sides.
At one time, Guo Moruo was at the forefront of Chinese arts and literature, considered a romantic and iconoclast. But all that changed during the Cultural Revolution, when, in the face of persecution, he failed to rise up to the moment.
For four days in October 1937, a small contingent of Chinese troops staved off Japanese invaders in one of the opening volleys of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The men who held their ground are known as the "800 Heroes,” and were led by Xie Jinyuan. They are now a symbol for Chinese strength and nationalism.
Guan Daosheng bent several norms of ancient China. She was a legendary artist specializing in masculine subjects, collected by emperors and revered by a Confucian society which usually confined women to the family courtyard and ranked them beneath their husbands.
Xinyu, which means "New Universe," was given his name by his grandfather, Chairman Mao himself. He has never been able to live up to either his first or last name.
Yu the Great harnessed water — and nature. During a time when floods constantly wrecked havoc on China's countryside, Emperor Yu's innovations in dredging, dikes, and divisions turned him into a legend.
Known as "the Father of Hybrid Rice," Yuan Longping is a national icon who has increased rice grain yields to levels previously thought impossible. This nonagenarian isn't showing signs of slowing down, either.
Or: The story of how “Shall we go hiking together?” became a meme and a euphemism for murder.
The Jade Emperor is the head honcho of the divine Daoist pantheon, the mysterious “Lord of Heaven," a vague guiding entity awarding dynasties with the “Mandate of Heaven.” But he has also been mocked through the ages, his history a strange combination of majesty and comedy, pathos and bathos, inscrutable as the bureaucracy he heads and just as inept.
Li Ziqi is one of China's most popular vloggers, with 50 million subscribers across domestic platforms — plus another 11 million on YouTube. Her videos show viewers a world they've lost: A countryside of simple beauty and purposeful work, devoid of the daily stresses of modern living.