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Original Chinese Version _Translator’s note: The lack of detailed depiction of police brutality is not an editorial choice; the author has stated that she was forbidden by the police to talk about some of the details during the interrogation. _ 2025-06-02 On August 1 last year, around 3pm, my mother suddenly shouted my name loudly on the first floor. She kept shouting, asking me to go downstairs. At that moment, I actually felt something was wrong, because she has never shouted my name like that....

Translated from 李宇琛：兰州警方跨省抓了一群写小说的女大学生 Translator’s note: China Digital Times (CDT; Chinese: 中国数字时代) is a California-based 501(c)(3) organization that runs a bilingual news website covering China. [404 Archive] Li Yuche...

Orignal Chinese Version 2025-05-31 I am going to Lanzhou next week, feeling desperate. I finally gained a few readers who like me after starting writing. When I was happy to meet those loving readers and friends, what they tipped me became the ironclad evidence of my profiteering. I just passed the postgraduate entrance examination this year, found a temporary job, and made plans with friends to go out for a trip and wait for the start of school in September....

Original Chinese Version 2025-05-30 I am the author of ….. There are many things I want to say, but I keep writing and deleting them over and over again…They gave me some warnings, I cannot say anything related. For the first time, I learned that even without drinking water, a person can cry so many tears. Almost every night, I suffer from insomnia.When I finally fell asleep, the nightmares woke me up and I was back to that day again....

Orignal Chinese Version 2025-05-30 I’ve lived like an orphan for decades—gritting my teeth and getting through it all on my own, carrying a body full of pain and illness. But I’m still standing strong. Just a few days ago, I joked with my bestie: maybe I should start preparing clothes for all four seasons—because if I really do end up in prison, you’ll be the only one bringing me something to wear....

Original Chinese Version Translator’s note: The police have issued summoning orders to writers living outside Lanzhou and they’re legally bound to travel there. No financial aid for traveling either if you cannot afford it you just become a criminal by not showing up. 2025-05-30 In the past twenty years of my life, I may have never thought that the first time I were to fly would be to get to the police station in Lanzhou....

Orignal Chinese Version 2025-05-29 When [incomprehensible] I really felt how absurd this world is. Sometimes I even wonder if one of my readers might be from my university too. I was even taken away right on campus in front of my friends, who watched as the officers followed me up to the dorm and searched my stuff. Back then I felt like I had completely lost face. Luckily, those were some of the very few closet friends I had, and they already knew I wrote fiction online....

Original Chinese Version Translator’s note: The police have issued summoning orders to writers living outside Lanzhou and they’re legally bound to travel there. No financial aid for traveling either if you cannot afford it you just become a criminal by not showing up. 2025-05-16 Yesterday, I finished my one-day trip to Lanzhou. I took a rest for the whole day. When asked what my biggest thought is, it will probably be that I left too hastily, Lanzhou was so cold, and I was still wearing a short-sleeved shirt from Chongqing....

The Haitang Incident 2024 and the ugliness of danmei culture/industry Liang Ge Open access | Research article https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494251326775 First published online March 19, 2025 Abstract The Haitang Incident of 2024 exposed the precariousness of danmei (boys’ love) culture and its creators in China under the dual pressures of state surveillance and platform capitalism. I critically interrogate the Chinese danmei cultural ecology through ugliness – not as a state-imposed stigma but as a critical lens and a generative conceptual tool....

Translated from 墨香铜臭传获刑三年，耽改IP的好日子到头了吗 Translator’s note: The Paper (Chinese: 澎湃新闻; lit. ‘Surging News’) is a Chinese digital newspaper owned and run by the state-owned Shanghai United Media Group. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu Reportedly Sentenced to...