Timothy Lesle

One of the interesting results of the retraction of This American Life’s Mike Daisey monologue on the Foxconn factory in China is the shoulda/coulda/woulda-ing of the press corps, particularly those who have some experience covering tech, China, and/or Mike Daisey. After hearing the original broadcast, Marketplace’s China correspondent thought some of the details were odd, [...]

Last week, with June 4 marking the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on the student protests in Tiananmen Square, Chinese officials blocked filming around Tiananmen by physically blocking shots. Below, the experience of BBC’s Beijing correspondent. Umbrellas are one of the things I remember from Korea, Japan and China. As a boy, I think I [...]

Roving China correspondent Josh Chin has filed a brief video report with the Wall Street Journal on Beijing’s growing transit system. It’s done well, and for being just a few minutes long, feels awfully comprehensive. My favorite is this Chinese kid who grew up in Switzerland and in documenting the entire subway system online.

A few days ago, the AP’s Daisy Nguyen published a report on the trend of building suburban-style developments around the world. Developers in China and India and Africa are looking to Southern California (pictured above, partially) for a growth model. While this should be alarming to anyone concerned about resources and climate change (and willing, [...]

Hao Zifu, retired miner, possibly former Red Guard. His working days were spent stooped in coal tunnels. At the end of the day, he had to lie on the ground to straighten his back. Hao Jiazhai, Shanxi Province, China. He’s holding two cigarettes. One is for me.

Although the flooding is near completion–the last city to be inundated is going under this fall–the consequences of China’s Three Gorges Dam will shudder through generations. But that’s a big story, and big stories are hard to tell well. One way is to find a character, a family, a community, and to show how the [...]

This morning, NASA and the Exploratorium webcast live from Xinjiang, China. You can watch their hour-long production at the Exploratorium’s Total Solar Eclipse web site. (That’s a photo from the Exploratorium blog above.) The broadcast starts about 30 minutes before totality, when the moon completely blocks out the sun. The first fifteen minutes include a [...]

Here’s my backyard on Thursday morning. The roses are blooming. There’s a nice, warm light here. But what is it about this air that’s so familiar? Take a look at the government’s air forecast map for this weekend: California doesn’t look too good. All those little fire icons are making the air here “moderate,” at [...]

China Boom Times: Life in China’s Coal Country China is portrayed as a land of glittering “instant” cities. But the economy that is driving the country’s growth is powered by coal. A look behind the curtain in China’s primary coal-producing region. The United States Fall of the Wild: The Drakes Bay Oyster Farm A controversy [...]

The always worthy Frontline is airing a documentary tonight following young Chinese adapting to a changing urban environment: No shortage of stories coming from the city in China. (No shortage of cities in China; something like 100–or more–cities with populations that exceed one million.) I chalk this up, in part, to a fascination with people [...]

So there’s a story related to this picture. Actually, the story I’m telling is about the village where this boy lives. It’s the reason why I’ve embargoed all of my photos from China last August. Check Frontline/World tomorrow (Thursday, the last day of January) and you’ll see what I mean.

The good folks at China Digital Times have pointed us to a documentary by Chen Weijun about an experiment in democracy in Chinese grade school. It’s an amazing piece. With all the electioneering and scheming, you eventually forget that you’re watching a bunch of eight-year-olds in a (nominally) Communist country. Here’s the YouTube intro:  In [...]