Future Awaits

No. 19

Dear friends,

In this special holiday issue of our newsletter, we ask our members to share their favorite piece of their own work from 2019 to kick off a self-empowering new year.

We also look back at Chinese Storytellers' key moments. We hope to grow and thrive with all of you in 2020.

Cheers,
Chinese Storytellers 


SHOUTOUT TO OURSELVES 我最满意的作品

Our most proud work from 2019.

Anonymous,  “L”: 

This photo is from one of my ongoing personal projects about life and people in North Korea. I made it in Tumangang, January 2019. This is my favorite photo from this year because it depicts how I feel about the country: the Korean Peninsula is waiting for its unknown future


Yangyang Cheng 程扬扬:

2019 is the year that I grew to be a writer, started to see myself as a writer, and view the world through a writer's eyes. I did a couple of long (and short) pieces for ChinaFile, and kept a monthly column at SupChina. I spoke at a few events and made some media appearances. 

I hate picking favorites, but one piece I would like to highlight is my November column at SupChina, "Talking to My Mother about Hong Kong." It is a personal piece on a timely subject, and also one that reflects a lot of the things I have been thinking about, and hope to continue writing about in the new year: national identity, intergenerational love and tension, and the struggle against empire.

READ


Tianyu M. Fang 房天语: 

Amid America’s paranoia of Chinese students, scientists, and immigrants, I profiled Hsue-Shen Tsien, a Chinese-born Caltech physicist who was deported from the U.S. during the McCarthy purges in the 50s. After Tsien returned to Beijing, he led China’s first missile and rocketry programs — making the deportation a shot in America’s own foot. Though Chinese propaganda frequently paints Tsien as an anti-American hero, its narrative conveniently omits details of his reluctant return. I feel thankful for the opportunity to retell this important story.

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Zhaoyin Feng 馮兆音:

In 2019, I explored multimedia storytelling in both English and Chinese, focusing on people impacted by turbulent U.S.-China relations. In Lancaster, California, I reported on the uncertain fate of a Chinese company’s American factory for BBC’s TV and radio platforms, with accompanying bilingual articles. In rural Virginia, I documented in text and video an African American soybean farmer’s frustrations regarding what he called a “devastating” trade war. My Twitter addiction sometimes also brings stories: I wrote about a group of Chinese immigrants in the US translating Donald Trump’s tweets into Chinese, as well as Chinese diplomats attempting to make a splash on Twitter. 

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Echo Huang: 

In 2019, I am proud of a piece I did comparing China and Russia’s propaganda systems within the context of Hong Kong’s social unrest in 2019. It was a fun experience reporting the story and a pretty satisfactory one to write. I see this piece as a proper goodbye to my former employer, Quartz, where I began my career in journalism. In 2020, I want to stay open-minded and take head-on the challenges I face in my current role as a finance journalist. I now write about asset management for Ignites Asia under the Financial Times.

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Frankie Huang:

Looking back on my work this year, I'm proud that the subjects I wrote most frequently about are Chinese women, their inner worlds, their hopes, their pains, and their dreams. My favorite piece was "My Grandmother's Favorite Scammer", a portrait of my beloved laolao 姥姥 trapped in a world that has no place for the elderly. As storytellers, our mission is to reveal hidden truths so people may better understand how the world can be changed for the better, and I'm proud to do this work. My resolution for 2020 is to be less risk-averse and take more chances on ambitious projects. 

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Tony Lin:

For years I have been following the evolution of censorship in China. In this episode of “Because China,” I interviewed Cantonese pop icon Anthony Wong 黄耀明 about his life after being banned in China for his political remarks. I spoke with a Fortune 500 marketing executive about how global companies censor themselves to maintain a foothold in the China market. As the world was shocked by China’s attempts to punish the NBA for Daryl Morey’s comments, I am proud that my piece served as a timely explainer of how China’s censorship works. 

WATCH


Shako Liu:

I think the work I am most proud of in 2019 was the short documentary I did about a young man in St. Louis who had a disease so rare that he was one of only two patients in the world, and the only one in the U.S. I created a very intimate and moving piece about his life seven months before he passed away. The video has garnered 3.7 million views on YouTube. I personally don’t cover stories about China, but I am really glad to have found Chinese Storytellers and hear the voices of fellow Chinese colleagues in the same industry in the U.S. 

WATCH


Shen Lu 沈璐:

In 2019, I was most proud of a piece I wrote for ChinaFile about China’s feminist movement that’s gaining momentum in the U.S. It’s a story about #MeToo, about China’s women and their revolutions, about people in spiritual exile finding a community. I’m glad I was able to give a detailed account of the crucial work China’s feminist activists have done, putting it in a historical and global context. I have also translated it into Chinese so that my people can read it, too.

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Isabelle Niu: 

I'm proud of the videos I produced for Quartz’s “Because China” this year — in particular, the story about how WeChat affects democratic elections. The piece explains how censorship and WeChat’s built-in features create a distorted information ecosystem. I managed to get a public account editor in Australia to talk about the reasons behind self-censorship. It‘s an important yet underreported story and I took care to not fall into the “scary China” trap. I also did an interview on a trampoline — which has to be one of my career highlights. 

WATCH


Huizhong Wu:

How do you report on something when there’s almost no publicly available information? I was a month into my job when I started reporting on the disappearance of Muslim and Arabic symbols from Beijing’s street signs. I had no insider sources and very little understanding of how the Chinese government worked. It was a lesson in piecing together the units of the local bureaucracy — the block-level office, how they communicate their orders, and the psychology of their operations. Perhaps the best part, though, is that this is a local Beijing story. Budgets often restrict us in the pitch process, but I just went around on my bicycle and did it.

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Muyi Xiao:

I am proud of the photo and video work that we edited and published at ChinaFile in 2019. I especially enjoy the portrait series of young people in Hong Kong by Todd Darling, which provides an intimate and sharp look at how they perceive their identities. I am also very glad that I pivoted into investigative journalism in the past year. In December I collaborated with The New York Times Visual Investigations to produce a story about a contentious labor transfer program in Xinjiang. From the work, I learned more about forensic-based journalism and handling sensitive material.

WATCH


William Yang: 

May 17th, 2019 is the day that I will never forget, both on a professional and personal level. Following more than three decades of campaigning, Taiwan finally became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, an achievement that was long overdue yet still remained one of the rare moments when the whole world turned its attention to Taiwan. As an LGBT journalist, I made the most out of this special, joyful moment by sharing it with the world through live television and writing. I can still remember when the crowd burst into a loud cheer while I was just about to answer the first question on air. I tried to remain calm on camera even though I was already screaming like I won the lottery. Later that day, I was able to calmly reflect in my debut on The Independent.

WATCH and READ


Dave Yin 殷大伟:

What was initially commissioned as a simple piece to recommend a cool magazine turned out to be so much more. In my attempt to profile China’s so-called last LGBT magazine, I stumbled upon something that illustrated China in 2019 as a whole. In writing this piece, I was able to explore themes including declining press freedom and shrinking space for self-expression, the potential futility of activism, the government’s increasing distrust of foreigners, and nostalgia among Chinese for what once was in more liberal times. I also met individuals fighting against all odds, including a lack of faith in their own community. It’s a story that was worth the months it took to follow from beginning to end. I hope to do more of this in 2020.

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Xinyan Yu 余心妍:

I moved from Beijing to New York in 2019. It was a decision that took me out of my comfort zone and forced me to confront many challenges, including better understanding my own identity. I’m proud of launching South China Morning Post’s video operation for the U.S. and squeezing out time to produce and direct a few films and documentaries. My short film on the American opioid crisis won the gold prize for Best Use of Online Video at the 2019 Asian Digital Media Awards. In the new year, I hope to keep stretching my capabilities and explore storytelling beyond topics about China across continents. 

WATCH


Lu Zhao 赵璐:

My most proud piece of 2019 was about infective endocarditis, a potentially fatal disease that often afflicts people who inject intravenous drugs. It was my last piece in Chicago before I left for DC last summer and it has brought me some acknowledgment. I spent almost a year reporting deeply on Chicago’s homelessness, engaging with and getting to know many people in this community. I noticed that many of them have or had this disease. While it appears researchers have not yet investigated this issue in Illinois, data obtained through a FOIA request shows that cases of drug-related infective endocarditis are on the rise in the state. 

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April Zhu 朱萸:

In 2019, I finally feel like I hit my stride as a journalist while reporting this piece on missions and privilege for The South China Morning Post Magazine. It turned me towards something I’d like to do more of: expanding our vocabulary about the impact that Africans leave on members of the Chinese diaspora beyond exchanges guided by market forces. In Kenya, the “unreached peoples” are those far from home, the missionaries, the locals, and the Gospel spoken in Mandarin; here, Jehovah’s Witnesses are a shadow of the Chinese diaspora. In 2020, I’d like to write more in first person.

READ


BEST 6 IN 2019 我们的高光时刻

Key moments of the gang.

🥛 Chinese Storytellers began as a small WhatsApp group called “Chinese Riot Gurls of Journalism,” where we mostly talked about work, life and...oatmilk. 

🥡 We decided to formally create a community on March 12, 2019, at a Chinese restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, to gather people like us in the international media industry and address issues including diversity and censorship. We hoped to inject our unique perspectives into often-oversimplified debates and reclaim our independent voices from the increasingly pervasive narrative of the Chinese party-state. 

👋In less than a year, more than 200 members from around the world have joined the collective. Our Twitter followers grew from 0 to over 5,000. In April 2019, we launched our bi-weekly newsletter; now, we have over 2,600 subscribers. We are deeply grateful for your support.

📰We published an op-ed with the collective byline of Chinese Storytellers in the Columbia Journalism Review, critiquing some of the international media’s problematic practices covering the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and crackdown.

🔏We organized a free digital security online workshop for our members, and we are hoping to do more training in the new year.

🎟️ We hosted two offline panels in New York City, collaborating with NY Shalong 纽约文化沙龙 and Inkstone. Stay tuned for our future event with NüVoices and Young China Watchers!

Wish you all a peaceful and fulfilling 2020!


Editors: Isabelle Niu, Muyi Xiao, Shen Lu, Xinyan Yu; Copy Editor: Miles Goscha

Chinese Storytellers is a community that empowers Chinese non-fiction content creators. Follow us @CNStorytellers. Questions? Suggestions? Comments? Tell us.