Chinese Reading Materials

[roddy]

What do people read in Chinese?

I usually pick up one of the Beijing tabloids on the way to work. The articles are pretty short and there are pictures . . .

I also read the news at

http://www.sina.com.cn

or

http://www.sohu.com.cn

I've also found some interesting articles through the 'culture' and 'society' categories at sina.com.cn

For magazines, I started off with the small Gushi Hui - story-meeting-, which has simple short stories and plenty of jokes (the first real Chinese reading I did was joke books, on the basis that they were short and easy to pick up for a few minutes without having to remember a plot. I gave up when I realised that none of them were funny). I got told that it wasn't difficult enough though.

I now get Duzhe (reader) or Qingnian Wenzhang (Youth Articles, though I may have the name wrong) which collect short stories and articles from other publications - I only ever read one or two articles, but there's always something worth reading.

One magazine I would love to get regularly, but haven't found again since I bought a copy at Chengdu airport is the Pheonix Weekly (Fenghuang Zhoukan) which is where I got the article on the mass food poisoning in Liaoning from. I haven't seen it again though. The magazine is associated with HK's Phoenix TV http://www.roddyflagg.34sp.com/poison.html

[Guest ckeone]

I read 金墉，古龙，倪匡. The 1'st two are classic 武侠小说(Chinese Martial Arts Imaginary Fiction). And Ni2Kuang1 is famous for Westley series, a sci-fi hero.

[jon831]

From time to time I have picked up magazines like a few of those mentioned, but I usually read much less than I originally planned. As much as I'd like to use more authentic materials, the convenience of the made-for-Chinese-learners stuff, for me, is a big attraction.

I'd always been on the lookout for learner materials that can keep my interest, being pretty much hit and miss. Recently I've been going through a series that is really good, called 想读就读 from Beijing Language and Culture University Press. They have a few different levels. Articles are all generally of interest, I find, more or less, and are very topical.