文艺青年 – China’s Emerging Hipsters

By Aimee Strang, Student at Nottingham University Ningbo Summer School. Wenyi Qingnian – aka the Chinese expression used to describe a hipster. The term hipster has become increasingly popular over the past decade to describe those who belong to a certain subculture and are predominantly from Generation Y. The idea of hipster has primarily been …

Fieldwork in Ningbo: getting beyond observation

By Felicity Woolf, Studying an MA in Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. The moment has arrived when I can no longer shelter in the library, deep in theory, but must venture forth to my chosen fieldwork site and attempt to find out what is happening there and why. I have …

Unintended Nostalgia

By David Symington, Studying a Masters in Chinese Philosophy at Fudan University. Contemporary China is a place where history seems to race. Cityscapes morphing out of all recognition within three years of when you last visited them and new fads that become ancient rituals before they’ve barely seemed to take hold (only this morning I …

Where the Governmental and the Avant-Garde meets

 By Dr Tianqi (Kiki) Yu, Assistant Professor in Film and Media Studies, The School of International Communications, The University of Nottingham, Ningbo China. If the charm of Berlin lies in the confrontation of different ideologies demonstrated through architecture and the closeness between history and present, the beauty of Shanghai is highlighted through the harmonious mix …