Like layers of haze and smog, Mao Zedong's ghost continues to linger over China today. Agnes Smedley (1892-1950), [1] Mao’s Western confidante, using her feminine intuition, noticed that there was a door of Mao's that was never open to anyone. As a matter of fact, Mao had more than one door. Let us...

Born Under the Red Flag Hu Ping discussing his essay, “On the Freedom of Speech.” Peking University, November 17, 1980. Photo courtesy of Hu Ping. NextGen: Envisioning Future A third-grade class in Guangzhou, 1999 This Little Era Students in class. Beijing, February, 2011. Photo credit: ToGa...

In 1978, 35 years ago, as China began to thaw from the dark ice age of Mao’s totalitarian rule, groups of young people from the bottom rungs and cracks of a closed society came out one after another to gather together. On the “Democracy Walls” in Beijing, Shanghai, and other cities, were not only...

One day in 2008, my 13-year-old daughter Lingling saw me organizing my grandfather Yan Cangshan's belongings. "Who is this?" she asked. "Was he very famous?" "He's your great-grandfather, my paternal grandfather," I responded. "He was a famous doctor of traditional medicine in Shanghai, and his...