There’s been a ton of feminist content this year - whether articles, videos, art, etc - but here are some of my faves. 

List based on what I shared on This. in 2015 (More about This. here!)

Lindy West on This American Life with the most heartbreaking segment about online harassment you’ll ever hear. (Seriously, have tissues at the ready)

Adam Serwer and Katie JM Baker’s searing profile of a men’s rights movement leader.

Asam Ahmad on call-out (and call-in) culture.

Marissa Alexander, the Florida mother of three who was jailed after trying to protect herself and her family from an abusive and estranged husband, tells her story in her own words.

One of the most powerful political cartoons I’ve ever seen: The phone rang, it was my college rapist.

The incomparable Saeed Jones with Self-Portrait of the Artist as Ungrateful Black Writer.

This Broad’s Life: an interview with Janet Mock, who continues to amaze.

Artist Sophia Wallace collaborated with HuffPo to bring her Cliteracy project online.

I could read Roxane Gay’s review of Magic Mike XXL every day.

Ann Friedman takes on the war on the way women, like, talk.

Kate Harding’s book on rape culture, Asking For It.

Why Consensual Sex Can Still Be Bad, from Rebecca Traister.

David Hume, Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the Soul (via fyp-philosophy) 

First, understand the provinces of China:

When people think of China, they all assume that everyone in China is Chinese, speaks Chinese, looks and live like this:

Now let’s look at the Ethnic Make-Up of China!

Look how many Han Chinese there are? But first things first! All the Han Chinese do not speak the same language! Chinese is probably as useful as saying the “Europeans”.

Let’s pretend that Europe is combined into a single country! But with London as the Capital City, and everyone is officially, “European” and they all speak “European”, with European English as the official language of Europe! The French, German, Spanish and Russians? They are their own entire language, culture and ethnicity.

Same goes with China. China is much larger than Europe, speaking different languages, eating different foods, practicing different religions, wearing different clothing. Beijing is the capital, with Mandarin Chinese as the official language of the entire country. However, Chinese languages are considered “Dialects”, but not their own distinct language, culture or ethnicity.

Now let’s look at the Han Chinese languages:

Mandarin Chinese not only has it’s “Northern, Eastern, Southwestern” dialects, but they even break up into more different dialects and accents from different region, city and province. There’s a difference between London accent, Welsh accent, Scottish and Irish accents. To simplify it, the government simply grouped everyone together.

Southern Chinese languages cannot mutually understand with any other Chinese. That’s like an Englishman trying to communicate with a German, a Dutch, or a Danish. They all belong from the same language group, but they cannot understand one another mutually.

But what about the other Non-Han Chinese?

See where Han is at? (Look where Beijing would be!) That is the original homeland of all Han Chinese people.

There are officially 56 Ethnic Groups in China, but there are hundreds and even more that are unofficial and undocumented. It’s the Chinese government way of saying, “Meh. Saffron, Violet and Pink are the same thing. Let’s just call it “Red”.

But how did Han Chinese became the major language and ethnic group of China?

Through conquest! Very much like how the Romans of today Italy killed, pillaged, raped and took over the Gauls of France, the Germania of Central Europe and the Britannia’s of the British Isles, and turned them “Roman citizens” through colonization and expansion!

But what makes China a unique case, is that the surviving natives of the Northern Han conquest, is that they still retain much of their native cultures. They survived, because most of the ethnic groups lived up in the mountains, where the ancient Han Chinese were too lazy to bring their armies up mountains:

Those who were colonized and assimilated into Chinese culture?

The Vietnamese were colonized by the Chinese more than three times.

Korea was colonized/tributing state for the longest time ever.

And Southern China! They would be influenced and assimilated strongest to Northern Chinese culture and language!

But why is everyone considered Chinese?

Same bullshit as your government saying that you’re an American, Canadian, British, Australian, etc. etc. citizen. It’s like a rich White straight male, taking control of the government and dictating how you live, under his life style. The Han Chinese says that everyone in China is all Chinese.

And mostly the blatent ignorance and education on the diversity of China. 

Chinese Dialects?

It’s another bullshit ideology.

Is French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese a dialect of Europe? No. They are their own distinct languages. They may come from the same Roman history, the same Romance language family, but they are their own language. Teochow, Hakka, Minnan, Cantonese, Mandarin, etc. etc. are their own distinct language and ethnicity.

Unified China?

To unify Germany, Hitler said that the German Race was the greatest race! Germans from all over Europe, the German Swiss, the Austrian Germans, etc. etc. united as a single “Race” and rose to power.

To unify China, Northern Chinese Emperors said that they were the greatest race! And attempted to conquer everyone else, killing anyone who wasn’t “Chinese”. This was done for more than 3,000 years, resulting in many extinct native cultures and ethnicities in China, and resulting many cultures (like Korea, Vietnam and even Taiwan) to assimilate into Northern Han Chinese culture.

Conclusion:

Not everyone in China are Mandarin Han Chinese, the major ethnic and language speaking group of China. Three different dialects of Mandarin and 6 different languages of Southern Chinese (Hakka, Min, Wu, etc.).

There is an official recognized 56 ethnic groups, but hundreds that are unrecognized. Such as Tibetans, Miao, Manchu and even Koreans and Mongolians!

Just some things I would like to add on/correct:

1. The term “Chinese” and name “China” is of Iranian origin -the Farsi word “Chin”, and that was the term that got passed to the Western world, just as for Iran itself, “Persia” came from the Greek name for Iran.

The local name for China basically means “Middle Kingdom” and is pronounced “zhong guo” in the Mandarin dialect. “Han” became a term to refer to our ethnic group after the Han dynasty. We are also called “hua ren” because the ancestral groups of people that would band together and identify as “Han Chinese” are called the Huaxia tribes. In English usage, many people just say “Chinese” not Han Chinese (even myself, admittedly). “Chinese” is also a nationality today and in Mandarin term used is “zhong guo ren” and generally I understand this applies to anyone with citizenship in the People’s Republic of China even if they are not Han.

The conflation of the Han people and our culture with “Chinese” as a whole is an intersection of several issues. Firstly, the imperialism and domination of our ethnic group as the post pointed out- which has led to Han culture becoming synonymous with the entirety of China and that’s why the other ethnic groups get erased. Think of this as similar to how “Englishness” is often conflated with “Britishness”, when the UK is also made up of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Further, the Chinese government today has very often tried to further Sinicise other non-Han ethnic groups. The English usage of “Chinese” also doesn’t always capture all the nuances. The fact that Han Chinese are such a dominant majority of the population further feeds this perception.

There is nothing inherently wrong with using the term “Chinese” but the problem with this is that elements of Han culture are far more explicitly treated as being the totality of the culture of modern China.

2. The thing about the non-Han ethnic groups mostly living in the mountainous regions where the imperial army didn’t bother conquering- I’d say that’s not an entirely accurate characterisation.

There were a lot of other indigenous ethnic groups in the plains and low lying areas who got massacred or forcefully absorbed too. For example, Austronesian-speaking peoples lived in much of the territory that is now modern China. Malays in Southeast Asia are an example of an Austronesian people. A lot of them got assimilated or probably suffered genocide so nothing remains of their history today. Another people assimilated are what we know as the Baiyue tribes, which is a loose term used by the ancient Han to denote several tribes they portrayed as “savages” and “barbarians”. Many non-Han people still survive today as China’s ethnic minorities but a lot more did get completely erased.

Simon Beck travels the world and creates inspiring designs of geometric patterns, fractals, dragons and symmetrical motifs that are made with painstaking precision. Planned beforehand using a computer, he projects his designs accurately onto the selected landscape and toils for hours after a gruelling expedition to finally give them form, leaving him only a few moments until sundown to capture the stunning photographs.

We’ve all heard of Betty Boop. But how many of you knew that she was based off of a BLACK woman.

Yes Betty Boop was based off of Ms.Esther Jones known by her stage name “Baby Esther”. She was an African-American singer and entertainer of the 1920’s. Her singing trademark was “Boop oop da doop” hence the name Betty Boop! She performed regularly at the cotton club in Harlem,New York.

Mysterious and Beautiful Monochrome Watercolor Art by Elicia Edijanto

Elicia Edijanto is an artist based in Indonesia. Her art is deeply attuned with her surroundings and experiences, as well as a touch of her imagination. Her series is mostly painted in ghostly monochrome watercolors that add to the hidden mystery which is a continuous theme in her art.

Playful Illustrations Playfully Feature Objects to Compose Silhouettes by Diego Cusano

Italian artist Diego Cusano’s philosophy of art consists of observing every detail and object from an unorthodox perspective. He published an image everyday, which transforms the function of an object into a creative solution in an illustration. The unpredictable functions fill the silhouette of the given image.

Using a variation of everyday objects and food, Cusano’s eccentric implementation of each item into his illustration provide a whimsical and 3D effect. Sliced potatoes are used to compose the leaves of a tree, whereas the broccoli shape emulated that of a flamingo’s body.

The meeting between reality and fantasy create an interesting composition, which is stimulated by sensations, colors and texture. You can find his entire archive in his Etsy shop.

The following dialects are included on this site: 

普通话 Mandarin

粤语 Cantonese

客家话 Hakka

闽南语 Minnan

潮汕话 Teochew

海南话 Hainanese

四川话 Sichuanese

重庆言子 Chongqing dialect

湖南话 Xiang

东北话 Northeastern Mandarin

宁波话 Ningbo

温州话 Wenzhounese

福州话 Fuzhou dialect

台语 Taiwanese Hokkien

常州话 Changzhou dialect

大连话 Dalian dialect

青岛话 Qingdao dialect