恭喜发财!Happy Year of the Rabbit!

By , January 17, 2023

Hippity hop!  Sunday welcomes year of the rabbit, putting to rest the ferociousness of last year’s tiger.  The invasion of Ukraine, various mass shootings in the United States, and the assassination of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, the world is ready to silence the tiger’s roar.

With the rabbit’s gentle nature, this year should prove to be much less dramatic. But 2023 is more than just year of the rabbit, it is year of the water rabbit!  Every year has it’s own element and 2023’s element is water.  At the same time each of the 12 zodiac animals has its own inner element and for the rabbit that is wood.  Why is this so good?  Waer helps wood grow which means that the characteristics of the rabbit will be reinforce by the water. 

The rabbit brings peace to the world and the year is usually one of hope.  In addition to the rabbit’s peaceful nature, the water element brings intuition and inner thoughtfulness, allowing people to be more sensitive to those around them.  As a result, the water rabbit should see a world focused on building bridges instead of walls.  Feng Shui master Raymond Lo thinks that the water rabbit could end the conflict in Ukraine but, being the half-glass-empty guy that he is, noted that that doesn’t necessarily mean that the conflict is over, only that it goes underground.  Feng Shui master Marites Allen also sees the year as a good one for world events, with conflicts subsiding and alliance being built.  She also notes that it is a good year for love and romance.

What does year of the rabbit mean for you?  That depends on your zodiac signs.  Check out this write-up on year of the rabbit’s impact on each zodiac sign. 

In the end, Lunar New Year is less about predictions and more about spending time with family and friends and cherishing them throughout the year which I hope many of you do.  For our friends in China, where COVID is running rampant, we will keep you in our thoughts and hope that your families stay healthy and safe.

恭喜发财!(Gong Xi Fa Cai – pronounced gong see fa tsai)

Cracks in the firewall: The recent protests in China

By , January 3, 2023

Originally published in Commonweal

Beijing, China, November 27, 2022 (REUTERS/Alamy Stock Photo)

Three days before China’s twentieth Communist Party Congress in October, a man dressed in an orange jumpsuit and yellow hard hat unfurled two large banners on a highway overpass in northwest Beijing. “No Covid test, we want to eat. No lockdown, we want freedom. No lies, we want dignity. No Cultural Revolution, we want reform. No supreme leaders, we want votes. Don’t be slaves, be citizens,” one of them proclaimed.  “Remove dictator and national traitor Xi Jinping” read the other, a shocking critique of China’s president and the man behind the country’s draconian “zero-Covid” policy. The protester’s statement was all the more surprising because in China the expression of any type of dissent is enough to land a person behind bars.   

Within minutes, police surrounded Peng Lifa and tore down his signs. But Peng’s message was noticed and, in the brief moment before the censors kicked in, photos of the incident flooded China’s internet. Many shared Peng’s frustration with zero Covid, where just a few positive tests have caused entire neighborhoods to be locked down for months, forcing thousands of people—even if they are asymptomatic—to isolate in massive quarantine centers for weeks. Just a few hours later, though, posts of Peng’s action disappeared. China’s algorithms had learned to erase all references to the incident, as if it had never happened.

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Book Review: Louisa Lim’s Indelible City

By , October 6, 2022

Originally published in Commonweal

About three years ago, before the onset of the COVID pandemic, I attended a talk in New York City given by a Hong Kong activist. Back then the city was deep in the throes of massive pro-democracy protests, with millions of Hong Kongers taking to the streets and enduring the sticky summer heat to oppose the increasing authoritarianism of the Chinese government. Despite his obvious weariness, the speaker talked hopefully about the prospective outcome of the demonstrations: the rule of law, freedom of speech, and human rights would prevail over China’s attempt to undermine them. “If we don’t fight for our freedom,” he said, “that is self-destruction.”

Fast forward to now, and even revealing that activist’s name would be enough to land him in prison. Just one year after the protests began, the Chinese government—without consulting Hong Kong officials—imposed a harsh national security law on the city-state. According to the statute’s vague wording, any expression of discontent, countervailing views, or conversations with “foreign forces” could result in a prison term of three years to life. Since the Hong Kong police are increasingly applying the law retroactively, the activist whose talk I attended is still very much at risk—even though he spoke in New York in 2019. For Hong Kongers, accustomed as they are to inhabiting a free society governed by the rule of law, the new law comes as a shock.

How did Hong Kong, a former British colony with an independent judiciary that protected personal freedoms, come to find itself under the heavy dictatorial thumb of Beijing? In her beautiful and timely new memoir, Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong, journalist Louisa Lim does more than simply answer that question. She fills a gap that has long been missing in books about Hong Kong: an account of the city’s long history of defiance, told from the perspective of Hong Kongers themselves.

Click HERE to finish reading this review.

Rating: ★★★★½

Author Louisa Lim

Indelible City: Dispossession and Defiance in Hong Kong, by Louisa Lim (Riverhead Books, 2022), 320 pages. 

China Law & Policy reviewed Lim’s previous book, The People’s Republic of Amnesia, perhaps one of the best books we have read about the 1989 Tian’anmen Massacre.  To read our review of The People’s Republic of Amnesia, please Click Here.


Interested in purchasing the book? Consider supporting your local, independent bookstore. Find the nearest one here.

U.N. Report Calls Out the Chinese Government’s B.S. about “Terrorism” in Xinjiang

By , September 13, 2022
Now former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet

On August 31, 2022, after a year-plus delay, criticism from the human rights community, and a Chinese government-run trip to China to “investigate” atrocities, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued its long-awaited report (“report” or “U.N. Xinjiang report”) about the Chinese government’s human rights violations in China’s predominately Muslim province of Xinjiang.  With high drama, then-Human Rights Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, published the report 13 minutes before she was to step down from her position.

Many have reported on the Chinese government’s extensive lobbying to prevent the report from seeing the light of day so the fact that it was published at all is significant.  But according to Politico, the Chinese government was able to sufficiently water down the report’s conclusions (OHCHR provided China with a pre-publication draft).  And there is much to be critical of: the report states that all these human rights violations “may” constitute crimes against humanity when they clearly do; it glosses over the use of surveillance that makes the whole of Xinjiang – even outside of the internment camps – feel like a prison; there is no mention of possible genocide even though it is obvious that the Chinese government is preventing Uyghur births, a covered act under the Genocide Convention (“imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”); and the report’s section on family separation shockingly omits any mention of the forced placement of over 800,000 Uyghur children in state-run boarding schools, also a covered act under the Genocide Convention (“forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”).  

Uyghurs practicing their religion in China

Nevertheless, there are some strengths in the report that should not be ignored, most notably OHCHR’s complete rejection of the Chinese government’s statements that its actions in Xinjiang are necessary for national security.  Instead, OHCHR condemned China’s Counterterrorism Law, enacted in 2015, and calls it out for criminalizing the practice of Islam in China.  The Counterterrorism Law, and its corresponding implementing regulations, fail to abide by international human rights norms according to the report.  The definition of terrorism in the law is so vague that it “leaves the potential that acts of legitimate protest, dissent and other human rights activities, or of genuine religious activity, can fall within the ambit of ‘terrorism’. . . .”  OHCHR saves its strongest criticism for the law’s definition of extremism.  First the report notes that under international and U.N. practices, only “violent extremism” is to be punished; the Counterterrorism Law fails to make that distinction.  Instead, by defining extremism through “ideas,” “thoughts,” “clothing,” and “symbols,” it also punishes the mere practice of religion.  But even worse than the vagueness of the law, is that its implementation is even more nebulous.  In reviewing available Xinjiang judicial decisions that used the term “extremism,” OHCHR found that courts often labeled acts as extremist without explaining how those acts fulfilled the legal standards, leaving the OHCHR with the only conclusion that in China all Islamic religious behavior is “extreme.” 

Chen Xu, China’s Ambassador to the UN at Geneva

These might seem like small points but the Chinese government constantly bats away criticism of its human rights violations in Xinjiang as necessary to prevent terrorism. So countering these false assertions is imperative.  Just look at the Chinese government’s response to the report.  The majority of its 122-page response is about the need to stamp out terrorism in Xinjiang.  But if OHCHR is now calling this b.s., other countries can no longer accept China’s excuses. 

Another positive is the report’s clear command that member states not send Uyghurs and other Chinese Turkic Muslims back to China, even if the Chinese government demands that they do.  Although the report makes no mention of genocide and only mentions crimes against humanity as “may” be happening, one has to wonder – if things weren’t so bad, why would OHCHR be telling countries not to send Uyghurs back to China?  OHCHR repeatedly states that sending Uyghurs back would violate the prohibition against refoulement (the forcible return of refugees or asylum seekers to a country where they are liable to be subjected to persecution) which means something pretty bad is happening in Xinjiang even if OHCHR does not want to slap a label on it.

Finally, perhaps the report’s most significant contribution is that even with its watered-down conclusions, OHCHR has put out such damning facts concerning the arbitrary detention, sexual violence, torture, and forced birth control perpetrated against Uyghurs that the world can no longer look away.  Expect this report to roil to the Human Rights Council (HCR) over the next few months, emboldening those countries who have long called on the HCR to do more and causing other countries that once might have defended China to no longer do so. 

Uyghurs protesting outside of China.

Performance Review: Everybody is Gone – Capturing some of the horrors of Xinjiang

By , August 8, 2022

There was nothing ordinary about the ticket check.  As soon as I approached the counter, the usual giddiness of seeing an opening night performance vanished. Separated from my friends, I was met with the angry scowl of a woman in a military uniform who took my ticket and barked at me: “Name!” “Elizabeth” I said. “Do you have singing talent!” “No.” “Do you have managerial experience!” “Yes.” With one last suspicious glare, the woman flicked my ticket back at me and shouted “go,” pointing in the direction of an open doorway.  I sheepishly scurried to the next room.

Thus marked the beginning of Everybody is Gone, an immersive art performance that does an astonishing job at conveying a little bit of the horror of being Uyghur in China. Co-created by Uyghur artist Mukaddas Mijit and U.S. journalist Jessica Batke, Everybody is Gone just concluded its opening run last week in Berlin and hopefully will secure funding for future performances, including in the United States.  

As the Chinese government seeks to push it’s authoritarian ways abroad, recently stating that the Taiwanese people need to be “re-educated” after Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island, Everybody is Gone allows the audience to experience what “re-education” means in the Chinese context. Since 2017, the Chinese government has been using the term “re-education” to justify its mass human rights violations in the Uyghur autonomous region of Xinjiang: the internment of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims without any judicial process or legal basis; suppressing the Muslim religion, the dominant religion of Uyghurs and others in Xinjiang; criminalizing ties abroad; forcing Uyghur families to have a Han Chinese party member live with them; forcibly limiting Uyghur births; sending Uyghur children to boarding schools; and constant surveillance and use of algorithms to punish Uyghurs for essentially being Uyghur.

Photo courtesy Everybody is Gone/The New Wild

My re-education began when I entered the next room where I was met by another silent, angry guard who grunted at me to join a group in the far corner of the room.  Lined up in two rows, audience members were commanded to provide definitions of words that the combat-boot-wearing guard held up on an index card.  “You,” the guard hissed, pointing to the audience member standing next to me. “What does this word mean?”  As I stood looking straight ahead, hoping not to be noticed, my neighbor mumbled some sort of inadequate response to the meaning of “motherland.”  “Give me your ticket” shouted the guard, taking my neighbor’s ticket and scribbling something on it, then moving to another audience member – “You!” – demanding she define the word.  After she gave a definition, the guard made my neighbor repeat it and then sent him off to another group.  When one of my friends was asked to define the word “globalization,” she became tongued-tied even though she works in international banking.  Should I help her?  Or would that just make things worse?  Similar thoughts raced through my mind when the guard suddenly turned to me and asked “did you come here with others.”  Do I tell the truth?  Or would that get my friends in trouble?  But if I don’t tell the truth, wouldn’t they know? 

How quickly the audience became paralyzed with fear is perhaps the most shocking part of the show, and about ourselves.  Eye contact ceased.  When an audience member was ordered to provide a false self-criticism, no one stood up to defend her.  How to keep the guards pleased so as to avoid being pulled out for public humiliation became one’s primary focus.  And while it may have just been a fluke that Everybody is Gone’s opening run was in Berlin, ultimately it was the perfect city to host what has been held to be an ongoing genocide of the Uyghur people.  Berlin is filled with museums that explain the Nazi’s rise, the terror of living under such a regime and the horrors of the concentration camps.  These tours take you to the places where the events happened, and by standing in these places, you try to imagine what it must of felt like and how, if you were in a similar position, would you survive.  But with the ongoing crimes against humanity in Xinjiang, the world cannot go to where the crimes are being committed.  Everybody is Gone bridges that gap a bit.  Using leaked government documents of camp protocols and the testimony of Uyghur refugees who have escaped abroad, Everybody is Gone allows the audience to feel a little bit of the horror of living in Xinjiang right now. 

Photo courtesy Everybody is Gone/The New Wild

The show ends with a village meeting, where the audience must sit there silently as Party chiefs drivel on about strengthening the motherland and attempt to make examples out of “good” audience members and “bad” ones.  It is at this point where it becomes obvious that the nameless country of Everybody is Gone, with its hot pink flag, is China.  As I sat there, exhausted from the tension of the last hour and hoping to avoid being dragged on to the stage, all I kept thinking was what a colossal waste of time and resources this indoctrination is. Instead of allowing people to go to work, raise their families, and find other ways to better themselves and society, they have to experience the stress of being part of a targeted group.  And this doesn’t even capture the full extent of the psychological torture or even touch upon the physical torture of solitary confinement, forced sterilizations and other abusive methods going on in Xinjiang.  After the live performance concluded, the screens on each side of the room filled with the faces and voices of Uyghur refugees, telling of the pain and misery they have endured.  Some keep their faces hidden because if they show themselves, their family members still in Xinjiang will feel the repercussions.  These testimonies can also be watched on Everybody is Gone’s informative website here.  Also on the website is a database of reliable source material, including Chinese government documents, about the myriad human rights violations in Xinjiang.

Everybody is Gone is not for the faint of heart.  It is a stressful hour-and-a-half and even though it only captures a little of what are Uyghurs experiencing, it is enough to remind the world that it must act to stop China’s genocide against the Uyghurs.  In the beginning of 2022, the Chinese government’s crimes against humanity and genocide were filling headlines.  With the war in Ukraine, the Brittney Griner situation, Taiwan tensions and other events, the news cycle has lost sight of what is happening in Xinjiang.  But as Everybody is Gone reminds us, it is still ongoing; human beings are still suffering and the Chinese government is still trying to destroy a people. 

On one of my last days in Berlin, as I walked with a friend, gold Hebrew lettering atop a building we were passing flickered in the afternoon sun.  Not expecting to see Hebrew, I stopped to look more closely.  We were in front of Berlin’s New Synagogue, one of the city’s few Jewish structures that survived Kristallnacht but whose congregation largely did not.  On the front of the synagogue, was a plaque written in German but which ended with the phrase, all in caps, “VERGESST ES NIE.”  My friend, looking at the plaque, said the German phrase aloud.  I asked her what it meant.  “Never forget” she said. Everybody is Gone takes these words seriously, forcing its audience to not forget what is happening Xinjiang and in doing so, demand that we act in time so that the Uyghurs do not experience the same fate of the New Synagogue’s members. 

Rating: ★★★★½


Everybody is Gone ran in Berlin from July 27, 2022 to August 2, 2022.  Currently, it has not posted any new shows as it was only funded for the seven-days in Berlin.  We hope that it is able to find funding to continue.  Check Everybody is Gone’s website for future announcements. 

A Threat to Justice Everywhere: China’s Persecution of the Uyghurs

By , February 22, 2022

Originally published in Commonweal

Early last December, a group of nine British lawyers and human-rights specialists gathered in a wood-paneled room under the glass dome of Church House, near Westminster Abbey in downtown London. They were there to do what the United Nations and its member states have so far failed to accomplish: conduct a thorough review of five years of evidence regarding the Chinese government’s persecution of its minority Muslim Uyghur population in the province of Xinjiang, a sprawling semi-autonomous territory in northwest China. On December 9, after hearing days’ worth of live testimony and poring over thousands of pages of expert reports, as well as published regulations of the Chinese government and other leaked documents, the independent Uyghur Tribunal pronounced its verdict. It found the Chinese government guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide of its Uyghur population.

Such an important determination should not have taken this long, nor should the judgment have fallen to a people’s court. Since 2017 the world has known—through media reports, academic studies, and witness testimony—that the Chinese government has summarily interned more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang concentration camps. . . .

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恭喜发财! Happy Year of the Tiger!

By , January 30, 2022

Enough with the head-down, slow-and-steady hard work of the year of the Ox. On Tuesday, the world will shake off its yoke and welcome the king of all beasts: the tiger!  Powerful, daring, bold, expect 2022 to be exciting and positive.  Even Raymond Lo, normally the Debbie Downers of feng shui masters, is excited!  As Lo points out, this isn’t just any ordinary tiger year. With 2022 being a water year, this is year of the water tiger!  And why does this make Raymond Lo burst with positivity?  Because the tiger’s inner element (every zodiac animal has its own internal element) is wood, and water is supportive of wood.  With such supportiveness, Lo sees a strong economic recovery, conflicts being resolved and more harmony in the world. 

But he does note that there is a chance that, like a tsunami, water could flood the wood and we will see elements of destruction.  Marites Allen, known as the “Philippine Feng Shui Queen,” echoed this sentiment, stating that the tiger, with its competitive personality, will cause people to have a short fuse.  On a more macro scale, we could see greater human rights violations and greater income inequalities Allen said.

For those who have missed traveling the last two years, both Lo and Allen agree that tiger years always mean more traveling.  But, in returning to his glass-half-empty self, Lo did say that because of this increased travel, there will be increased traffic accidents.  Be warned.

But overall, the sentiment for year of the water tiger is positive, with the Way Fengshui Group in Singapore telling Her World magazine that tiger years can “turn crazy dreams into glorious reality.” So dream crazy and dream big.

Of course, how you fare during year of the water tiger depends on how your birth sign interacts with the tiger.  Her World magazine has a list of predictions for each of the 12 zodiac signs in this upcoming year (click here to look up your sign)

Ultimately though, Lunar New Year is less about predictions than it is about celebrating with cherished family and friends over good food and fun.  For our friends in China, where COVID is popping up, our thoughts are with you and we hope that you can take solace knowing that there will be more positive times to come, at least according to Raymond Lo.  加油.  And of course,恭喜发财 ! (gong-see-fah-tsai – “may you be happy & prosperous!”)

What’s Biden’s plan when our athletes protest and get detained?

By , December 12, 2021

Last Monday, the White House announced that, because of the “ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses,” President Joe Biden will not be sending any diplomatic, government or other official representatives to the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.  With the U.S.’ announcement, other countries and territories have followed suit. New Zealand, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Scotland, Kosovo and Japan all have announced similar diplomatic boycotts.  To its credit, Lithuania preceded the United States in announcing a diplomatic boycott by three days.

But in light of the Chinese government’s ongoing persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims – the unlawful internment of one to three million in camps (and yes, it is unlawful under Chinese law), the criminalization of their religion, the restriction on Uyghur births, the constant destruction of their mosques and other religious grounds, the seizure of Uyghurs’ passports, and the dehumanization of Uyghurs – a diplomatic boycott is not enough.  Our athletes’ participation in the shadows of what the U.S. government has declared a genocide and U.S. corporations’ Olympic sponsorship will make the Beijing Winter Games come off as business as usual.  We don’t look back on Berlin 1936 because we sent our diplomats to attend the Nazi’s Olympics.  We look back on the Berlin Summer Games because we allowed our athletes to perform before a regime that we knew was persecuting and dehumanizing its Jewish population.  And in allowing for business as usual, we demonstrated our lack of commitment to protecting Germany’s Jews and gave the Nazi government the imprimatur of global legitimacy.  With just a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, expect the same result which, if history is a guide, does not bode well for the Uyghurs.   

Additionally, leaving the moral responsibility to do more on the shoulders of our athletes is not only unfair to them, it is also dangerous.  Many of our athletes are in their late teens to mid-twenties, peak age to take on causes and protest.  In March of this year, likely recognizing their athletes’ proclivity to activism and the U.S.’ tradition of free speech, the U.S. Olympic Committee permitted demonstrations at the U.S. Olympic trials.  At this summer’s Tokyo Olympics, U.S. shot-putter Raven Saunders, while on the medal podium, held up her arms in an “x” in protest for the oppressed of the world.

Tibetan flag

But such protests in Beijing could result in severe consequence for our athletes under Chinese law.  Disrespecting the Chinese flag is a crime under Chinese Criminal Law (Article 299) and anything touching upon Tibet or Xinjiang, such as unfurling or wearing a Tibetan or East Turkestan flag or symbol, could be deemed inciting separatism (Article 103) or inciting ethnic hatred (Article 249).  Similar with any show of support for an independent Taiwan or for protestors in Hong Kong.  Even writing #WhereIsPengShuai could easily fall under the Chinese government catch-all, anti-activist criminal prohibition against picking quarrels and provoking troubles. (Article 293(4): “making disturbances in public places. . . .”).  Even if the Chinese government doesn’t want to throw the book at a foreign athlete, there is always administrative detention – a 15-day prison sentence without trial – as a result of “disturbing public order” that could be a good way to prove its point.

East Turkestan flag

The fact that the world will be watching should not afford any comfort. The past few years have shown that the Chinese government has no qualms in using its legal system to prove a political point.  For almost two years, the Chinese government detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in retaliation of Canada’s arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.  American citizens and siblings Victor Liu and Cythnia Liu, who went to China to visit family, were forbidden from leaving for over three years, likely as a way to pressure their businessman father to turn himself in on fraud charges.  Even the United States Department of State has noted the political use of the legal system , warning Americans traveling to China that the “government arbitrarily enforces local laws, including by carrying out arbitrary and wrongful detentions and through the use of exit bans on U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries without due process of law.”

So what’s the Biden’s administration’s plan when one of our athletes is detained or not allowed to leave China?  Has the U.S. Olympic Committee informed athletes’ parents and family what it will do when their relative goes missing?  The Biden administration and the U.S. Olympic Committee need to be honest with our athletes and their families that protesting in China could have real consequences and if they do protest, communicate now what the U.S. government will do for them.  It’s funny how our choice to engage in a diplomatic boycott also puts us, the bastion of free speech, in the awkward situation that to ensure our athletes’ return, we have to tell them not to protest against some of the gravest human rights violation in the world today.  Perhaps a more complete boycott – athletes, corporate sponsors, media coverage – would have been the better choice, both morally and for the safety of our athletes. 

Book Review: Bruce Dickson’s The Party & the People

By , November 11, 2021

Originally published in Commonweal

In his 1950 memoir, Peking Diary: A Year of Revolution, American sinologist Derk Bodde issued a warning to U.S. policymakers. He had just returned from Beijing, where the People’s Liberation Army had marched into the city and easily toppled the ruling Guomindang (Nationalist) government. The lack of popular opposition to the coup was hardly surprising. Constant blackouts, runaway inflation, and rampant corruption had made even ideological opponents of communism eager for the arrival of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP, or simply “the Party”). It would thus be a mistake, Bodde cautioned, to assume the Chinese people felt “enslaved” by an illegitimate regime. It was the CCP, not the Guomindang, that was responding to the needs of the people. 

Seventy years later, the West still hasn’t learned Bodde’s lesson. Fortunately, Bruce J. Dickson’s The Party and the People offers a needed corrective to the American misconception that the CCP lacks popular support. Hardly some inflexible, iron-fisted regime that governs through fear and repression, the CCP is fairly responsive to the Chinese people and the changing times. As Dickson points out, the Party’s adaptability is precisely what has enabled it to maintain its grip on power for more than seven decades.

Click here to continue reading this review.

Rating: ★★★★½

Author Bruce Dickson

The Party and the People: Chinese Politics in the 21st Century, by Bruce Dickson (Princeton University Press, 2021), 328 pages.

Interested in purchasing the book? Consider supporting your local, independent bookstore. Find the nearest one here.

Just for Fun: Restaurant Review – Noodles at Yiwanmen

By , September 2, 2021

Just for Fun (“JFF”) is a sporadic series on China Law & Policy where we take a break from the more serious aspects of China’s development. JFF often features movie reviews, restaurant reviews, art reviews, or anything else that could be considered “fun.”

Yiwanmen in Manhattan’s Chinatown

For many of my friends, I am their “China person.” Questions about Chinese politics, questions about Chinese culture, questions about good Chinese restaurants, they all come to me.  But it is the latter – good Chinese restaurants – that I feel most obligated to answer correctly.

So when my friend Tanya randomly said to me “I want good Chinese noodles,” I went to work, researching and asking friends who work in Manhattan’s Chinatown, what was there number one pick for noodles.  One name that kept coming up was Yiwanmen, or in Chinese characters, 一碗面, “A Bowl of Noodles.”  Seemed like a must try.

Yiwanmen, on Mott street in Manhattan’s Chinatown, has the look of a faux hole-in-the wall spot, with wood paneling on the outside in an attempt at making it look old even though it opened in 2017.  Inside, a small dining area with three tables and a few side seats, its clear that Yiwanmen is too clean to be a true hole-in-the wall.  But don’t let that distract you from the noodles, which are delicious, authentic and not to be missed.

Yiwanmen makes the smart, strategic decision of not offering too many noodle dishes, a total of 11 with only six being noodle soups.  And while Yiwanmen presents itself as a Chongqing noodle spot (it’s chef is from Chongqing), my eyes – and stomach – gravitated to its more northeastern noodle fare, namely the hongshao beef noodle soup. Hongshao, a type of slow braising technique using fermented bean paste common in northern and eastern China, is not usually associated with Chongqing, a city smackdab in the middle of China that embraces Sichuan spicy as its flavor of choice.  Should I go with something outside of the chef’s native city?  I decided to take the risk. I ordered the hongshao. 

And thank goodness I did.  The pieces of beef explode with the sweet, savory flavor of the hongshao, and because it was slow cooked, the beef melted in my mouth, making chewing largely optional.  The broth, a touch greasy, was flavorful withfresh cilantro and the noodles were perfect – not too chewy and they did not stick together. The chef may be from Chongqing, but he obviously is a master of all of China’s noodles.  Although one noodle not on the menu is the famous thick, pulled noodle (la mian, 拉面) of northwest China.  But given the ubiquitousness of those noodles throughout Chinatown these days, it was nice to find a place that shined the spotlight on China’s other noodles.  And at $9 for a big bowl of noodles, Yiwanmen is at the perfect price point. 

Hongshao noodle soup with jianbing in the background

My friend also ordered the jianbing, a crepe-like sandwich sold on the streets of Beijing.  I have never been a fan of jianbing so I cannot speak to whether Yiwanmen makes a good one.  But if it was me (and hopefully it will be me again very soon at Yiwanmen), I would stick with the noodles.  The fact that the place is called “Bowl of Noodles” in Chinese and not “Plate of Crepe-like Sandwich” is telling. 

One thing to do before you go – make sure you aren’t wearing your nice clothes, like my friend who wore her silk dress.  Drops of noodle soup just gets on you even if you try to be careful.  Other choice is to wear a bib.  But no matter what, when you are in the mood for noodles, get yourself to Yiwanmen. 

Rating: ★★★★☆

Yiwanmen
150 Mott Street (between Grand & Broome Street)
New York, NY 10013

Yiwanman’s Menu

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