https://www.scmp.com/rss/328930/feed Shen Lu is a journalist based in the United States. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com When Kate Wang, an education consultant in Seattle, gave birth to her daughter six months ago, she video-called her father, who was thousands of miles away in China, on the app WeChat. So far, it’s the only way he’s met his granddaughter. With a firewall separating much of China’s internet from the rest of the world, few apps have traversed both sides like WeChat. A combination of Facebook, Venmo, and YouTube all rolled into one, WeChat has been called an “everything app” for its wide-ranging... https://www.scmp.com/culture/if-wechat-gets-banned-its-end-my-business-how-trumps-order-could-upend-life-chinese-america/article/3097834?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/if-wechat-gets-banned-its-end-my-business-how-trumps-order-could-upend-life-chinese-america/article/3097834?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Aug 2020 09:47:44 +0000 When US President Donald Trump suspended foreign work visa programs through the end of the year, he rattled a wide swathe of the Chinese community in America, with many regarding the move as a harbinger of more drastic measures to come. Trump’s executive order last month doesn’t affect people currently living in the United States – but those with visas worry they will one day be deprived of their legal status. And Chinese students in the country – nearly 370,000 – face new uncertainty about... https://www.scmp.com/politics/trump-making-life-really-difficult-chinese-students-us/article/3092260?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/politics/trump-making-life-really-difficult-chinese-students-us/article/3092260?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 08 Jul 2020 09:26:16 +0000 Shen Lu Shen Lu 2025 update: An interviewee in this article has been anonymised in light of the political climate for the Chinese community during US President Donald Trump’s second term When US President Donald Trump suspended foreign work visa programmes through the end of the year, he rattled a wide swathe of the Chinese community in America, with many regarding the move as a harbinger of more drastic measures to come. Trump’s executive order last month doesn’t affect those now in the United States – but... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3092242/trump-administration-limits-international-visas-leave-chinese-students?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3092242/trump-administration-limits-international-visas-leave-chinese-students?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 07 Jul 2020 20:53:30 +0000 As Covid-19 gathered pace in the US last month, Amy Zhao lost her accounting job and then her visa status when she learned that she did not get picked in the work visa lottery. Resigned to what she saw as a streak of bad luck, Zhao planned to return home to China, but could not find any direct flights. Travel restrictions left her stuck in the US at the start of unprecedented uncertainty brought on by the pandemic. “What surprised me was that I couldn’t find a flight back to China,” Zhao said,... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3079469/unemployed-chinese-graduates-us-face-hard-decision-stay-or-leave-amid?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3079469/unemployed-chinese-graduates-us-face-hard-decision-stay-or-leave-amid?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 Apr 2020 21:56:29 +0000 “We support Jingyao!” “I’m not a perfect victim!” “We believe in survivors!” “We support #MeToo in China!” On Sunday evening, about 60 feminists, mostly Chinese nationals, formed a human chain on the streets of New York City’s Lower East Side. They chanted slogans and held signs in solidarity with Liu Jingyao – a Chinese student at the University of Minnesota who has sued billionaire JD.com CEO Richard Liu over alleged rape – and also called out support for the thwarted #MeToo movement in... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3031924/silenced-home-finding-voice-overseas-chinas-feminists-cultivate?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3031924/silenced-home-finding-voice-overseas-chinas-feminists-cultivate?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Oct 2019 21:58:57 +0000 Albert Pi, in his second year of a PhD program in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), endured an 85-day wait for his US visa while visiting family in Beijing over the winter break. A trip meant to last only two weeks nearly turned into a permanent homecoming. The reason for the delay: “administrative processing,” a designation for visa applications undergoing additional vetting for security reasons. Several students in science and... https://www.scmp.com/politics/visa-processes-are-tightening-chinese-students-us/article/3011678?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/politics/visa-processes-are-tightening-chinese-students-us/article/3011678?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 May 2019 09:28:07 +0000 Albert Pi, in his second year of a PhD programme in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, endured an 85-day wait for his US visa while visiting family in Beijing over the winter break. A trip meant to last only two weeks nearly turned into a permanent homecoming. When he applied to the US embassy for his visa renewal, he never expected a wait that would nearly force him to give up on his programme. “My biggest fear is I won’t be able to return... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3011584/chinese-studying-us-become-political-cannon-fodder-visa?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3011584/chinese-studying-us-become-political-cannon-fodder-visa?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 May 2019 19:06:54 +0000 In spring 2012, as I hailed to Iowa for my undergraduate studies from my hometown, the eastern city of Hangzhou, a fellow Chinese student took me to an American-style Chinese restaurant called China Star.  I was first greeted by signage set in a quirky typeface used apparently by all Chinese restaurants in the United States, called chop suey.  Inside, pictures of dishes like General Tso’s Chicken and Orange Chicken Mongolian Beef looked profoundly unappealing. I ordered beef and broccoli because... https://www.scmp.com/food/how-i-learned-love-american-style-chinese-food-no-not-lucky-lees/article/3006181?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/food/how-i-learned-love-american-style-chinese-food-no-not-lucky-lees/article/3006181?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Apr 2019 10:53:40 +0000 “I will be your breadwinner.” “Girls studying biology are my type. Older women I don’t like.” These are just a few of the examples of messages emblazoned on banners hanging across Chinese campuses on March 7, an informal “Girls’ Day” invented by college students supposedly to celebrate the youth of women.  But these public banners are sexist, not celebratory. And the bullying of those who rightly protested the messages is an ominous sign for gender equality in the world’s most populous... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/shen-lu-protests-against-sexist-girls-day-festival-are-growing-modern-china-far-equal/article/3002614?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/shen-lu-protests-against-sexist-girls-day-festival-are-growing-modern-china-far-equal/article/3002614?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 21 Mar 2019 08:58:12 +0000 I knew traveling as part of a tour group was the pits. I knew that the Lunar New Year holiday is the worst time to travel. Yet when my father proposed that my family go with a group of 20 other people to Thailand for Lunar New Year, I complied. I did it out of guilt and a sense of duty, as a prodigal Chinese daughter who in the past eight years had barely seen my family. Short on time to plan a trip myself but feeling compelled to spend some time with my family, I thought I’d put up with the... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/shen-lu-traveling-chinese-tour-group-gives-you-sympathy-them/article/3001118?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/shen-lu-traveling-chinese-tour-group-gives-you-sympathy-them/article/3001118?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 08 Mar 2019 09:22:30 +0000 I had been mulling over a retort to “Go back to China!” since President Donald Trump took office in 2017. I didn’t have it by the time a friend shared with me screenshots of an email sent out by Dr. Megan Neely of Duke University to the Chinese master’s students in the university’s biostatistics department, telling them to stop speaking Chinese in the break room. The email said that two unnamed professors had come to her seeking to identify the Chinese students speaking “VERY LOUDLY” in Chinese... https://www.scmp.com/opinion/shen-lu-what-say-when-people-tell-you-speak-english-or-go-back-china/article/3000720?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/opinion/shen-lu-what-say-when-people-tell-you-speak-english-or-go-back-china/article/3000720?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 04 Feb 2019 09:29:58 +0000 The best way to describe Junzi Kitchen is if Chipotle started serving Chinese food. Customers who walk into this fast-casual joint in New York are offered two choices of carbs popular in northeastern China: a flour wrap called chunbing (春饼) or a bowl of noodles. They can then fill it with whatever meat, vegetables, sauces, and garnish they want. “Americans will immediately know it as an Asian burrito when they see it,” says Yong Zhao, co-founder of Junzi Kitchen. The restaurant, which derives... https://www.scmp.com/food/young-restaurateurs-envisioning-new-chinese-american-cuisine/article/3000242?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/food/young-restaurateurs-envisioning-new-chinese-american-cuisine/article/3000242?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Nov 2018 13:38:40 +0000 A crackdown by US immigration authorities on thousands of potentially fraudulent asylum applications is reverberating throughout the Chinese immigrant community in New York, causing anxiety and confusion as applicants rush to find legal strategies to avoid possible deportation. The US is reviewing more than 13,000 cases handled by immigration lawyers, agents and others convicted after a 2012 investigation called Operation Fiction Writer. Those who were found guilty helped more than 3,500... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2167730/chinese-clients-new-york-asylum-mill-lawyers-may-face-deportation?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2167730/chinese-clients-new-york-asylum-mill-lawyers-may-face-deportation?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 09 Oct 2018 14:36:20 +0000