Lying in a broad and fertile plain fifty kilometers south of Dali Prefecture s Xiaguan (下关) in western Yunnan, boasting many Ming and Qing Dynasty structures and a preserved old quarter of traditional shop houses, Weishan (巍山) is a charming, old-fashioned town that gets surprisingly little tourist traffic. The few visitors are mainly Chinese families or couples from other parts of Yunnan. Dali (大理), just eighteen kilometers north of Xiaguan, is the main attraction for travelers in the area.
On Aug. 18, China’s stock market plummeted by a vertigo-inducing 6.2 percent in one day of trading, part of a months-long decline that’s erased over $3 trillion worth of market value from the country’s equity markets. That followed last week’s surprise decision to allow the value of the renminbi (RMB), China’s currency, to fall several percentage points against the U.S.
If any of the makers of modern China who agonized over their country’s enfeebled state and dreamed of better times during the past century and a half could have visited Beijing’s Pangu Plaza today, they would hardly believe their eyes. Pangu’s preening thirty-nine-story office tower, capped by a massive figurative dragon head in stone, stands high above the fourth ring road,
"This outcry, teemed with desperate hope, opens a new page to China's literature and history". For this addition of Books' 'Decolonising Your Bookshelf' series, Leo Li gives an insight into the work of Lu Xun, Chinese philosopher, author and the hand behind the first vernacular Chinese novel.