Christy George's Blogs

  • Tiananmen Square

    I did a lot of reading before I left for China.

    * Out of Mao's Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China - Philip Pan
    * China Road: A Journey Into the Future of a Rising Power - Rob Gifford
    * China: Fragile Superpower - Susan L. Shirk
    * Oracle Bones - Peter Hessler
    * Chinese Lessons: Five Classmates and the Story of the New China - John Pomfret

    These helped me remember something I was tempted to forget once I got here: despite the appearance of U.S.-style

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  • Systemic problems infect Chinese health care

    Today, we visited a modern and well-equipped teaching hospital in Kunming, in Yunnan Province, on China's southwest border.

    It has a cardiac care unit, a neonatal intensive care unit and plenty of diagnostic tools like MRIs, but it also uses traditional Chinese medicine. For instance, we saw an arthritis patient getting acupuncture to help reduce her pain and a stroke patient getting acupuncture to increase her mobility.

    The administration told us that officially, the hospital has

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  • IRP Gatekeepers visit Chengdu & earthquake zone

    Spent two days in the countryside outside Chengdu in Southwest China.

    Chengdu is famous as the home of China's beloved giant pandas. We visited the panda breeding center just outside the city yesterday and yes, they are adorable. (I'll post video of the pandas when I'm back in Portland next week.)

    We also visited the Baishuihe Nature Reserve north of Chengdu, where pandas live in the wild, munching bamboo (we didn't see any wild pandas).

    The reserve is very near the epicenter of

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  • China’s booming solar industry

    Got a glimpse of China's booming solar industry this morning at the Beijing Hope Solar Power Company outside the city. This private company makes photovoltaic panels and fun apps (solar backpack!).

    It's the kind of company Gov. Kulongoaki most likely wants to lure to Oregon, to set up shop and employ Oregonians.

    With a free afternoon before we fly to Chengdu in Sichuan Province tomorrow morning, a few of us went to Beijing's glorious Temple of Heaven.

    Despite the modern Jumbotron

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  • IRP editors talk internet censorship with Chinese gov’t officials

    Our delegation of editors sat down for green tea and talks with several central government leaders today: Dr. Zhu Chen, China's Health Minister; Zhenhua Xie, Vice-Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission; and Chen Wang, the director of the State Council Information Office (SCIO), the International Reporting Project's official host in China.

    Why Is China Important To Oregon?
    Christy talks with OPB Morning Edition host Geoff Norcross

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  • Transparency about environmental pollution in China - who would’ve thought?

    Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs founder and director Ma Jun

    Turns out China keeps great statistics on just about everything - a practice that dates back to Mao and all those five-year plans (China will finish Five Year Plan #11 this year, although it's now called a Five Year Guideline).

    Those stats are coming in very handy these days for the environmental NGO, Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, based in Beijing.

    The

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  • China embraces Western style consumerism

    Real estate ads in Beijing

    When I visited Japan in the 1990's, I couldn't help but feel alienated by a language that was completely opaque and impenetrable. Tokyo's sprawling megalopolis seemed impossible to ever really know, even if you spent a lifetime there. And of all the corporate names lighting the night sky in neon the only ones that were familiar were Sony, Sharp and Panasonic.

    But to my surprise, there's a familiarity here in Beijing that

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  • Oregonians care about China

    The Siberia/Mongolia Border

    You need a globe, not a map, when you fly from Washington, D.C. to China, because the route takes you due north, past Canada's Baffin Bay, up and over the North Pole, and due South from Siberia, through Mongolia and into Beijing.

    I took that flight yesterday as one of 12 editors visiting China with the support of the International Reporting Project, at Johns Hopkin's School of Advanced International Studies. (And yes,

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