Chinese feminists are rebuilding their movement abroad
Stand-up comedy is one means of resistance
Two Chinese women sit on the stage of a basement comedy club in Manhattan. They wear matching blazers and speak highly formal Mandarin, just like presenters on Chinese state television. But their “news commentary” is acid. Chinese youths who have recently been making nuisance phone calls to Japan—in protest at the release of waste water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant—have shown “commendable spirit” insists one of the newsreaders, to a guffawing crowd. Despite having “no jobs or incomes” these nationalistic youngsters have “spent their own money on long-distance calls”.
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This article appeared in the China section of the print edition under the headline “Standing up”
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