Tianyu M. Fang
Tianyu M. Fang is a freelance writer and journalist covering Chinese culture, politics, and technology. You can find him on Twitter: @tianyuf.
Latest Posts
Ghosts of Communists past
Litmus tests for U.S. citizenship based on Communist Party membership are a throwback to the 1950s. They still don’t make sense.
More Posts
How a Chinese nationalist’s talking point found its way into a Trump tweet
Donald Trump’s recent anti-China tweet cites an interesting source: a Chinese academic known for his pro-Beijing stance. The academic’s words found their way to English-language media — Fox News, specifically — through the Epoch Times, a Falun Gong newspaper that has aligned in recent years with the American far right.
‘Your mom is dead’: The origins of the Chinese internet slang NMSL
It started in 2015 with Sūn Xiàochuān 孙笑川, a Sichuanese construction worker who livestreamed League of Legends games on a channel belonging to his friend. Now, “NMSL” is ubiquitous on the Chinese internet. How exactly did that happen?
‘Morally condemnable’: China’s ambassador to Russia scolds Chinese returnees
Photo by Huizhong Wu / Reuters Chinese nationals in Russia are swarming to the Heilongjiang border amid Russia’s rising number of COVID-19 cases, but they’ve been…
Popular Chinese science channel, praised for COVID-19 video, falls victim to nationalists
With COVID-19 at its peak in February, authorities in China found themselves fighting on two fronts: the disease itself, and also a rash of misinformation flooding…
The impossible politics of doing business in ‘China’
The Taiwanese fruit tea chain Yifang recently found itself battered by — successively — mainland Chinese internet users, Hong Kongers, and Taiwanese customers. They’re not…
To earn points on China’s little red app, I downloaded a cheat tool from GitHub
It’s only been less than two months since the release of Xuéxí Qiángguó — 学习强国, i.e., “study to strengthen the nation” — a propaganda smartphone app…
Chinese state media editorials, written by no one ever
What happens when you find your name attached to an editorial you didn’t write, expressing an opinion that isn’t yours? Last month, an editorial…
How Hou Dejian went from Tiananmen protester to composer of the patriotic song ‘Chinese Dream’
On December 31, 2018, a song called “Chinese Dream” (中国梦 zhōngguó mèng) was performed at a “release ceremony” at a high school in Zhengding, Hebei Province…
Chinese marathon runner loses gold medal after volunteers thrust national flag
Imagine that you are in first place at the end of a marathon, sprinting toward the finish line, when suddenly a patriotic volunteer barges into…