Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone knew of any 'edgy' Chinese textbooks that are on the market? Around the upper-intermediate level and up?

By 'edgy' I mean discussing serious topics that confront China, say hukou reform, food inflation, environmental problems etc.

I know that ChinesePod does discuss these topics, but I have let my subscription slide as I didn't think I was getting a return on my $29.95 a month.

If nothing comes up, I will just revert to using the newspaper and self-teaching myself. However, a textbook which also discusses grammar et al would be useful! :-)

Any suggestions or questions please let me know!

Cheers,
Joe

Have you tried popupchinese, gets a little more edgy perhaps, and US$100 for year

I think it's going to be hard to find textbooks that talk about the issues you've mentioned. With most textbook creators being Chinese (or at least the editing staff) and many of the mainland publishing houses having some connection to the government, it's unlikely that they would be able to even bring up some issues, even if they wanted to.

The other issues is creating textbook content that stays relevant for an extended period of time. Some issues are just avoided to ensure that they don't have to publish or change materials year after year.

I think you and ricksh have mentioned some of the better options out there: ChinesePod, Popupchinese, and traditional media houses are going to be the best way to find issues and topics that push the boundaries of what you'd find in a regular textbook.

If anyone finds anything, however, I would love to hear about it!

In addition to what's been suggested above (Popup Chinese is great), Reading Into a New China is pretty relevant though not too edgy per se. Advanced Reader of Contemporary Chinese Short Stories has been on my wish list for a while now too.

It's kind of dated, but the US in the People's Daily is definitely good at (in a discussion-based classroom environment mind you) teasing out issues in China through analysis of what the PRC's own media system tends to focus on about the US.

Thanks guys! I will check all those out! :-)