Raymond Zhou

The author is a columnist and culture critic with China Daily

Naked truths

[2009-01-09 07:43]

This month last year, a bunch of snapshots of Hong Kong star Edison Chen and several starlets engaged in extremely explicit scenes surfaced online.

Creating an image - or trapped in one

[2008-12-31 08:46]

This has been a year of extremes - extreme joys and extreme sorrow. It was a year many celebrities decided to tie the knot, or bear children, or emigrate overseas, at least in name; and it was a year amateur photographers made history without the aid of Photoshop.

Movie magic in 2008

[2008-12-25 08:02]

This has been an uneven year for Chinese cinema. On the one hand box-office revenues are expected to reach a new high, on the other hand mediocrity still reigns supreme. This makes it a daunting task to pick 10 shining examples of cinematic excellence.

Studying the 'Wen effect'

[2008-11-28 08:11]

What do Oprah Winfrey and Wen Jiabao have in common? They can both catapult obscure works into bestsellers. The American television host opened a book club, a segment on her extremely popular talk show, in 1996 and has since recommended dozens of books, increasing their sales by as much as a million copies each. Hence, the "Oprah effect".

The lost generation

[2008-11-21 08:02]

Last week, I was in Phoenix - not John McCain's homeplace in Arizona, but the small town in west Hunan province. I was invited to attend a forum for young writers and critics. I did not make the cut in age, but "young" is flexible in China and I've seen a 55-year-old placed in this category. Fortunately, most of the attendees happened to fall neatly into one age bracket: They were born in the 1970s, which automatically makes them "post-70ers", or "70-hou" in Chinese.

Fighting slander with rationality

[2008-11-01 07:50]

Song Zude is a one-man tabloid. In his Sina.com blog, he has been making statements so outrageous it's a wonder nobody has sent an assassin his way.

Cheap chips off the old block

[2008-10-31 08:09]

What's so special about the term that literally means "mountain village" and is suddenly making headlines everywhere.

True story of police brutality

[2008-10-18 08:34]

What started as an open-and-shut case of police brutality has morphed into a Rashomon where truth is elusive.

Respecting different opinions

[2008-10-11 07:57]

On October 5, while signing autographs at a Wuxi bookstore, an author was taken by surprise - he was slapped twice on the face by a reader.

Tightening quality control

[2008-09-27 07:33]

Early this month, while on an assignment in Hohhot, I was taken on a tour of Mengniu and Yili, two of the most prominent businesses in Inner Mongolia. I was so impressed by what I saw that I called my wife right there in a corridor overlooking the assembly line.

We must not exaggerate what is said

[2008-09-13 09:30]

After the successful Olympic opening ceremony, director Zhang Yimou rode a carousal of media interviews. In one of them he revealed that a member of the organizing committee of the 2012 London Games "invited" him to their show. Zhang turned down the offer.