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Rachel Lu

Hong Kong
As seen in: MSN, TIME, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), The Atlantic, Substack, Sydney Morning Herald, Foreign Policy Magazine, National Review, Yahoo, Washington Examiner and
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China's Real Inconvenient Truth: Its Class Divide

China's Real Inconvenient Truth: Its Class Divide

Foreign Policy Magazine — Solving China's air and water pollution will require addressing the gap between rich urbanites and rural peasants. HONG KONG - China is talking about its pollution problem, but its equally serious class problem remains obscured behind the haze. Smog leapt to the forefront of Chinese national discourse after the Feb. 28 release of Under the Dome, a 103-minute-long documentary quickly hailed as China's version of the Inconvenient Truth. In the film, which immediately went viral on social media and garnered 150 million online views within days before being censored, investigative reporter Chai Jing explained the root causes of air pollution that has ravaged so much of China in the past few years.
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Why 700 Million People Keep Watching the Chinese New Year Gala, Even Though It's Terrible

Why 700 Million People Keep Watching the Chinese New Year Gala, Even Though It's Terrible

Foreign Policy Magazine — The Chinese New Year Gala, which aired live on Feb. 18 on Chinese Central Television (CCTV), is a four-and-half hour variety show with song and dance, comedic skits, magic tricks, acrobatic acts, and celebrity cameos. The show celebrates the Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival, the country's most important family holiday. Every year at this time, hundreds of millions of people will make a total of 3.6 billion trips - the world's largest annual human migration - to crowd together on sofas with their family members, eat dumplings, and watch the New Year Gala.
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Secrets to Rearing a Chinese Superbaby

Secrets to Rearing a Chinese Superbaby

Foreign Policy Magazine — HONG KONG - Giving birth is never easy, but for new Chinese mothers, the month following a baby's arrival is particularly fraught. Immediately after I became pregnant for the first time, I started to hear about zuoyuezi, or "sitting the month." It's a period during which new mothers are supposed to stay confined with their babies, and it's considered crucial, full of strict, sometimes incredible requirements. "Don't wash your hair." "Stay away from air conditioning." "Don't touch cold water." "Don't use cell phones." These were just some of the more common pieces of advice meted out by a well-meaning army of aunts, older friends, and the cacophony of Chinese social media.
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Resistance Is Futile

Resistance Is Futile

Foreign Policy Magazine — HONG KONG - A chill has gripped Hong Kong. The Occupy Central movement, which advocated for open nomination rights in the 2017 election for chief executive, the city's head of government, is entering its third month, and what is likely to be its final phase. After more than 60 days of sleeping in the streets and battling police batons, protesters are almost out of moves, while the powers that be in Beijing have not yielded one inch to demands that they allow more open elections in the Chinese territory. Hong Kong will probably emerge from the movement battered - its government scorned, its police mistrusted, its social fabric torn.
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A Turning Point in the Fight for Hong Kong

A Turning Point in the Fight for Hong Kong

Foreign Policy Magazine — HONG KONG - Future generations may well commemorate Sept. 28, 2014, in the history of Hong Kong as the day when the famously apolitical city turned...
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For Alibaba's Small Business Army, a Narrowing Path

For Alibaba's Small Business Army, a Narrowing Path

Foreign Policy Magazine — As Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba plans an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange expected to raise approximately $20 billion as early as Sept. 18, celebration is surely in order for the company's executives. But for millions of small entrepreneurs who've invested blood and sweat to build their business on Taobao, Alibaba's consumer-to-consumer e-commerce platform, life has gotten harder, leading many to inflate sales, operate at a loss, or abandon the platform altogether. In that sense, Alibaba is increasingly a microcosm of modern Chinese development: The initial gold rush that has allowed a great number of enterprising upstarts to improve their stations in life has yielded to a game in which those with the most capital win.
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China's 'Hormone Economy': Monetizing Male Loneliness

China's 'Hormone Economy': Monetizing Male Loneliness

Foreign Policy Magazine — HONG KONG - For some young Chinese, it's living the dream: make $300,000 in two years, work 10 hours a week, and win thousands of adoring fans, all without leaving the comfort of home. These may sound like the outlandish promises of an email scam, but a group of young women in China seem able to pull it off, at least for now, thanks to the country's growing "hormone economy." The term joins "hormone industries" as turns of phrase that now frequently appear in China's domestic media.
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China Is Ending Its 'Apartheid.' Here's Why No One Is Happy About It

China Is Ending Its 'Apartheid.' Here's Why No One Is Happy About It

Foreign Policy Magazine — China's longstanding system of hukou, or residential registration, has been much vilified; in April, The Economist even compared it to apartheid. However stretched the analogy, it's clear the hukou system is inherently unequal. At birth, every Chinese citizen is assigned one of two essentially permanent categories - either rural or urban - based on their parentage. Originally implemented in the late 1950s to control internal migration and keep urban labor costs low, the binary hukou system has created enormous inequality among the approximately 250 million rural migrants who have flooded Chinese cities in search of work.
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Who Lectures China's Leaders?

Who Lectures China's Leaders?

Foreign Policy Magazine — The Communist Party Politburo is the de facto power center of China. Its members - currently 23 men and two women - make the policies that directly affect 1.3 billion Chinese citizens, and, indirectly, hundreds of millions more around the world. How does that ultra-exclusive body learn about the complex world outside of Zhongnanhai, the cloistered compound in central Beijing where many top leaders reside? Who gets to bend their collective ear on the issues of the day? A June 3 article in the Beijing Times, a state-owned local paper based in the Chinese capital, took a quick peek behind Zhongnanhai's gilded doors at the so-called "group study" sessions modern Politburo members attend.
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China's New Class Hierarchy: A Guide

China's New Class Hierarchy: A Guide

Foreign Policy Magazine — HONG KONG - Class is a sensitive word in China. Marxist-Leninist rhetoric like "class enemies," "class conflict," and "class struggle" are rarely seen in the...
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