Chinese Voices Project: Social Issues

At What Cost Growth? (1.2 / 494)
Joanna Hsu
    Energy use, pollution, and climate change are major hot-button issues in today's China, where rapid economic growth and environmental protection increasingly appear as seriously conflicting priorities.

 

The Third Sex: Female PhDs (1.3 / 273)
Chun Juan
     Women who pursue advanced degrees still face a lot of hostility in China, as being smarter than the men around you is not regarded as an appropriately "feminine" characteristic.

 

To Give or Not to Give? (1.3 / 435)
Joanna Hsu
     Beggars in China used to ask for food and water; now they ask for money, and passers-by, especially in the city, often give them wide berth.

 

China's New Proletariat (1.3 / 532)
Joanna Hsu
    While the lives of migrant workers are invisible to most city dwellers, the results of their daily labor, in the construction boom that is transforming China's cities, could hardly be more conspicuous.

 

Requesting the Right to Die (1.4 / 427)
Joanna Hsu
     A severely disabled woman recently petitioned the National People's Congress to pass a law to legalize assisted suicide. She's vowed to persist in her campaign for the right to die with dignity, but given prevailing Chinese views on this issue, she's got a tough row to hoe.

 

Wealth and Corruption Go Hand in Hand (1.4 / 252)
Joanna Hsu
    With the rise of the new rich in China, resentments about growing income disparities are increasingly evident. Some would argue that corruption, rather than personal wealth, is the real problem; others suggest that the two are inseparable.

 

In Pursuit of Peace (1.5 / 462)
Lynn Long
     As over-used as slogans of "peace" and "harmony" may sometimes seem, there are deeper meanings to these ideas that merit reflection in an often violently divided world.

 

China's Left-Over Brides (1.7 / 622)
Alice Yue
    Women beyond the age of 30 are finding it increasingly difficult to find a husband, owing to a combination of rapid social changes and die-hard traditions.

 

Beggars in Beijing (1.7 / 400)
Lynn Long
     The old peasant woman on the subway had been abandonned by her children, so she came to the city to beg for a living. Some fellow passengers take pity on her; others are skeptical or even cynical about her plight.

 

Gender Equality, 100 Years Later (1.7 / 370)
Yang Qiong
    Equality between the sexes was one of the central promises of the revolutionary movements in China from the early 20th century onwards. While women have entered the workforce in great numbers, popular attitudes about women's proper roles have been very slow to change.

 

AIDS in China (1.7 / 295)
Chun Juan
      Sex is often not a comfortable topic in China, and the growing prevalence of AIDS even less so, though the situation is gradually beginning to change.

 

The Old Can't Afford to be Ill (1.8 / 664)
Alice Yue
     With health care costs rising, extended families shrinking, and the social security safety net in tatters, how will the growing ranks of the elderly in China get the care they need?