You there, with the smartphone/e-reader and a love of long-form nonfiction … Yeah, I’m talking to you. We're delighted to offer you our latest column with a roundup of recent long reads about China. Here you'll find the articles, slideshows and videos that we think are worth your time. Bookmark them, download them, do what you have to but just make sure that you read them. You'll be the toast of the dinner party circuit. Read on to get your read on.

“To Keep But Not Be Kept” by Deanna Fei
New York Times
When a Chinese-American novelist embarks on an interracial romance in Shanghai, uncomfortable questions arise about what it means to depend on somebody that you love. (1553 words)

Excerpt: “Other realities I hadn’t quite faced: my mother’s pointed remarks about how women had nothing without financial autonomy; a mutter from my father that I’d become a laowai’s mistress; the incredulity of friends who knew I had paid the bills by working as a teacher, a salesclerk, a waitress, while devoting my spare time to writing. Now here I was trying to finish a novel about a family of fiercely independent women touring their ancestral home of China, while I lived like a trophy wife.”

“Enter the Cyber-dragon” by Michael Joseph Gross
Vanity Fair
An investigative piece about the cyber-attacks that have cracked the firewalls of the US Defense Department and Google – and the trail of breadcrumbs that leads back to Chinese hackers. (6515 words)

Excerpt: “Pollet says the victims knew that something strange was going on because they kept getting locked out of their e-mail accounts for no apparent reason. But the Adversary stayed under the radar by making an ingeniously malevolent move: taking control of the companies’ virtual I.T. help desks, impersonating their I.T. help-desk staff, and answering employees’ service complaints themselves.”

“Little Girl Found” by Patti Waldmeir
Financial Times
A reporter in Shanghai discovers an abandoned infant on the street, relinquishes her to the authorities and watches her disappear into the system. When she follows up to see how the baby has fared, she encounters resistance … (3855 words)

Excerpt: “The doughnut shop staff had already called the police to report the abandonment, so I knew I would not have long with Baby Doe (or Baby Donuts, the nickname suggested irresistibly by the location). I knew that the police would call for an ambulance, too, that would whisk the child away. So for half an hour I cradled the infant (which I only later discovered was a six-week-old girl) and bawled.”

“Cramming for College at Beijing's Second High” by April Rabkin
Fast Company
Fascinating, funny account of Chinese students – those who defend the gaokao and those who don’t. Written by a foreign reporter who returns to the Beijing high school where she was an exchange student. (3900 words)

Excerpt: “For many years, long hair, perms, and hair dye were banned, though it could be a sign of China's baby-step liberalization that girls may now grow out their locks. ‘Before, they didn't. That was a violation of our human hair rights!’ says Yang Keyang, a senior with long braids whose English names include Coppelia, Pealina, Coco, and Rosalind. (English names being one of the few areas of total liberty for the students, she chose those--all of them.)”

“Stuck in the Middle: Inside China’s Art Cram Schools” by Guo Juan, translated by Michael Einar Engstrom
LEAP: The International Art Magazine of Contemporary China
What does it mean to cram for an art exam in China? Another article about the institutions and rituals that spring up in response to the pressure-cooker Chinese educational system, but from the angle of a niche field of study that one might expect to offer its students more of an outlet for creativity. (2849 words)

Excerpt: “In the materials room of one school there is a so-called ‘CAA Gray Series’ of colors, said to be made at the peculiar whim of a CAA [China Academy of Art] graduate according to the preferred pigmentations as mixed at CAA. Before, it was popular practice to have examinees mix their own watercolors, but now, even this step can be skipped. The phrase ‘a good sense of color’ is no longer applicable, as all a student has to do is use the existing colors correctly.”

 Photo from Flickr user bballchico