Megan Shank dot com

In journalistic publications, design should be content-driven and meet the same standards of accuracy as text. Of course, text often contains errors. These mistakes are traceable to the many details that the writer may fail to check, to the failure to thoroughly vet sources, and even to a revision from an editor who at the [...]

Tonight I dine on infantile foods—instant mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese—to coddle hurts. Yesterday, sometime during the night, my beloved cousin died. He was 30 years old. Though beleaguered with various physical hardships throughout his life, his spirit never flinched. But his heart ultimately failed.
When a young person dies, it disrupts the natural order of [...]

I finally return to my regularly scheduled blogcast. Or at least I pound out a little update before an afternoon run along the Iowa River. Yes, Iowa. That’s where I am–for the next several months, in any case, before the move to NYC.
In the past two weeks, Adam and I had our Shanghai wedding [...]

I came across this reading from the Bhagavad-Gita that helps cure the procrastination blues. Procrastination, I believe, stems from the fear that the results cannot be as we hope. Here then is a less attached way to look at work, as translated by Swami Prabhavananda:
You have the right to work, but for the work’s sake [...]

I wrote a little travel package about Shanghai’s jazz scene, late-night eats and sexy duds for Newsweek International.
Swinging Shanghai
Published Feb 28, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Mar 9, 2009
Late-Night Nosh
Published Feb 28, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Mar 9, 2009
Dress the Part
Published Feb 28, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Mar 9, 2009

On Friday, I had the pleasure of meeting Zhu Yingxin and awarding her the scholarship created from the proceeds of Impulse, the original play by myself and Summer Block that I produced in Shanghai with the talent of a multinational cast of actresses.
Zhu Yingxin is a student writer/director at Shanghai University with two films [...]

纤云弄巧，飞星传恨，银汉迢迢暗度。金风玉露一相逢，便胜却、人间无数。 柔情似水，佳期如梦，忍顾鹊桥归路。两情若是久长时，又岂在、朝朝暮暮。
(宋秦观）

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I present a fictional love letter–a Chinese migrant worker’s manuscript to his country bride-to-be. Enjoy.
Dear Liu Xiuxiu,
How are you? And the village? Shanghai is cold and forever rainy. I long for you.
Pardon the coarse handwriting. No one ever mistook me for a good student—else how could I have wound [...]

Jennifer 8. Lee presents a fascinating Ted Talk. Look out for the Omaha shout-out. I also love the use of “nugget-fying” as a verb.
Can you think of a town that doesn’t have a Chinese restaurant?

Dear readers,
If you’ve had problems finding my site via Google, it’s because I’ve been hacked. I’m working to clear up the problem. Thank you for your support and patience.
Megan

The Winter 2009 edition of Ms. Magazine recently hit the newsstands with a controversial cover to boot. Below, find the full text of a story I wrote for the edition.
I also took the photo for this piece. You can see the pre-Photoshop shot on my Flickr site, which has suffered the same neglect as this [...]

Find a piece I wrote for Newsweek International here, or see text below:
Bomb Shelters Into Bars
Innovative developers in Shanghai are giving old buildings new purpose.
Megan Shank
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Feb 2, 2009
This year rings in the Chinese year of the bull—a good marketing hook for an old Shanghai slaughterhouse turned art hub. [...]

Last night Adam and I arrived in Guiyang, Guizhou, from Guangzhou, Guangdong, where we spent several days. I interviewed the head administrator of a woman’s hospital who is also the chief curator of China’s first sex museum for women for a story I’m writing for Ms. Then Adam and I wandered through rainy alleys while [...]

I’ve visited six Shanghai grocery stores and have not been able to locate ground cinnamon, which I require for the vast amount of baked goods I’ll create on the 24th. Maybe they’re selling it for scalped prices at the train station. Back to the basics, I suppose. Bark? Check. Hammer? Check.

For meganshank.com
Filmmaker John D. Liu believes we have a solution to climate change, but it’s not as simple as reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Liu’s film Lessons of the Loess Plateau, recently presented at the Asia Society’s headquarters in New York, explores how, with outside investment and local people’s commitment and courage, ecosystems destroyed by human [...]

For meganshank.com
Natural disasters, ethnic tensions, international PR bungles, Olympic glory, milk powder malaise, skyscraper renaissance and a spacewalk—2008 was a big year for China. This week’s Southern Weekend, one of the nation’s more reputable papers, reveals its list for China’s person of the year and invites the public to help choose a winner.
Below, I’ve [...]

Three months ago, I moved into a flat with roommates, which has turned out to be a delightful experience — primarily because my roommates are brilliant and creative oddballs with brilliant and creative oddball friends. Count an Englishman who frequents our home among the latter.
Aside from charming me with unconsciously nostalgic tales of growing [...]

Today I was swept up in the vortexes of the CIA World Factbook and HTML coding sites. Can anyone out there feel me?

I can now safely–and officially– announce here Newsweek Select, the Chinese-language edition of Newsweek where I worked for the past few years, has shut down with no re-opening in sight. The reasons I shall not disclose, but the financial crisis shares some of the blame. Regardless, I learned a great deal at the publication [...]

For meganshank.com
By Megan Shank
A group of chubby 8- to 18-year-old children trudge around a sweltering track under the watchful gaze of Frank Yu, general manager of Shanghai Dianfeng Sports Management Co., Ltd. While still a student at the Shanghai University of Sport, Yu, along with the help of two classmates, independently generated 30,000 yuan (USD [...]