Megan Shank is an editor, writer and translator living in New York City.
January 5th, 2012

For Dissent

On July 1, 2011, halfway through a speech commemorating the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party, President Hu Jintao stressed the importance of a people-centered approach to governance. Going forward, he said, the Party must “follow the principle of putting people first…we must consult the people on policies, learn about their needs and seek suggestions from them. We must listen to their views, truthfully reflect their wishes, help alleviate their hardships, and protect their economic, political, cultural and social rights and interests in accordance with the law.” Hu called on officials to develop closer bonds with the communities they serve. Alienation from the people, he warned, “poses the greatest risk to the Party.”

That is true—but it also smacked of irony. For during the preceding four months, the Party had received many clear signals that multiple segments of the country’s population felt that it was ignoring their needs…

July 25th, 2011

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For Bloomberg.com

When serial entrepreneur George Ji Wenhong and private equity investor Huang Jin launched luxury goods and fashion clothing online retailer Xiu.com during the global recession in 2008, they relied on word-of-mouth to generate interest. “Huang was data-driven and convinced that advertising couldn’t positively impact sales, particularly in the short-run. He thought our competitors were stupid for spending so much on ads,” recalls Ji, who first met Huang when the two were roommates in college in Beijing in 1988

July 1st, 2009

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For Archaeology

From a distance, the mausoleum of China’s first emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, looks like a verdant hill, a welcome resting place among craggy peaks. According to the Han Dynasty historian Sima Qian, the unopened 2,200-year-old tomb contains countless treasures, including replicas of palaces and rivers of mercury. Other parts of the memorial complex in Xi’an have yielded incredible finds–most famously, a life-sized terracotta army 8,000 strong. A century after the emperor’s death in 210 B.C., Sima Qian wrote that it took more than 700,000 workers to complete the massive project. Though some scholars argue that number is inflated–greater than the population of any city in the world at that time–it remains widely used by Chinese historians. Even if the true number of workers at the emperor’s tomb was a fraction of that, they still represent a large and largely unknown population. Who were they? Where did they come from? Knowing their origins could tell archaeologists and historians a great deal about labor resources, movement and migration during an important period, when Qin Shihuangdi sought to expand his newly unified nation…