Pip: Yuling Chen has a lot on her mind — trade beef, Bitcoin, evictions, art exhibitions, acid reflux — and somehow it all connects back to one question: who actually has power, and over whom?

Mara: That's the territory we're covering today. Chen's recent posts range from China's role in global trade and entrepreneurship to protest movements, borders, and policing — and then into bodies, health, and the institutions that are supposed to support people but often don't. Let's start with China and global power.

China's reach — trade, surveillance, and money

Pip: The question running through this segment is whether China's growing economic weight actually benefits ordinary people — or whether it functions more like a set of obstacles dressed up as opportunity.

Mara: The post "China, beef, etc." puts it plainly: "China wants people to export and import beef. It has accelerated domestic productions in an extremely alarming way. Poultry is no longer the only things that matter in the industrial landscape of the world."

Pip: So the upshot is that China is reshaping global food supply chains fast enough that the rest of the world's trade conversation can't keep pace — which is exactly why, the post argues, trade talks keep stalling.

Mara: "Is entrepreneurship hot in China?" pushes further, arguing that operating under Xi Jinping's framework carries real personal risk — state surveillance, political labeling — making entrepreneurship less a ladder and more a tightrope. "Is China's economy revitalized?" extends that, describing how pandemic lockdowns were used to control movement and information simultaneously.

Pip: And "Has China become too powerful?" grounds all of this in something personal — the cost of speaking openly about China's politics isn't abstract. It lands on individuals.

Mara: "China, etc." and "Financial report, bitcoins" round out the picture. Bitcoin is growing, the post notes, partly because China's economy has made it a currency of choice — though it hasn't reached its full potential yet.

Pip: Power and protest tend to travel together, which is exactly where we're headed next.

Borders, protest, and the cost of dissent

Pip: This segment asks what happens to protest movements when the political environment actively works to suppress them — and what art does when journalism can't keep up.

Mara: The post on Ivanka Trump frames the tension sharply: "Her face is contorted by a pathological fear towards him and shows a relentless desire to kowtow to the established status quo, the patriarchy, and the conservative values of which she was brought up."

Pip: That's a portrait of what accommodation to power looks like from the inside — which sets up everything the other posts in this group are examining.

Mara: "How is Hong Kong protests, Iran protests, etc., Going Nowhere?" argues that Trump's return to office has systematically eroded the infrastructure of civil dissent globally. "Borders," "Strangers," and "Grammars" each review exhibitions — at Union Station, MoCA, and MoCA Toronto — that take on Israel-Palestine, Venezuela, and China's crackdowns as their subject matter. "Sugar Baby" includes a direct interview about immigration and survival. "Bad Wolf" and "Saga" close the loop, using Isaac Julien's wildlife video installation and a Roman footwear excavation to ask what it means when China is painted appetizingly while suppressing the very voices that could tell a truer story.

Pip: From protest in the streets, we move to something quieter but just as urgent — what happens inside the body when the system doesn't catch you.

Bodies, health, and getting by

Pip: This segment is about physical survival in conditions where institutions are either absent or inadequate — and what people do when they're left to manage on their own.

Mara: "Acid reflux" is the most direct account: "I went to hospitals several times to no avail. They couldn't diagnose anything except giving me Tylenol and telling me to come back. It had made my life hell. So I went to get tums all by myself."

Pip: Self-treatment as the default — that's what happens when healthcare offers a shrug and a painkiller.

Mara: "Nose Game" ties breathing practice to surviving police brutality and inequality. "Hunger" is a vivid personal essay set in Chengdu — hotpot, a red wallet on a table, men watching from the street — about food, threat, and the texture of being young and female in public. "Is children's psychology a playground for rich?" asks who gets to define mental health and for whose benefit. "Sex industry," "Pegs in a machine," "Can people hear me?" and "Cars" each press on the same nerve: bodies navigating systems that weren't designed with them in mind.

Pip: Which leads, almost inevitably, to the question of money — who has it, who controls it, and who gets left out.

Money, work, and institutions that fail

Pip: The last segment asks what the formal economy actually delivers to people on its margins — and whether the institutions meant to support them are functioning at all.

Mara: "Air france, air canada, corporate manslaughters" is the anchor. It moves from airline litigation to a broader observation about the job market: "the jobs market is drying up even though the reported numbers were high and looked rosy and perfect."

Pip: Rosy reported numbers, drying actual market — that gap is where a lot of people are living right now.

Mara: "Are jails full?" raises questions about policing and detention. "Financial reports, debt collection, etc." argues that debt collection is largely a recycling mechanism, and describes navigating bankruptcy and disability benefits. "How is everything fake?" and "Bitterly jealous" examine the performance of success online versus the reality underneath. "Afghanistan, movies and Oscars," "Berlinale, pumpin' blood," and "NYC writing excerpt may 2026, women" each approach institutions — film festivals, theaters, transit — as spaces where who gets seen and who gets overlooked is never neutral. "Daily reflections — can roses smell good?" and "Is Los Angeles south?" close with something quieter: the texture of planning, moving, and trying to build a life amid all of it.

Mara: Across all of it, the throughline is the same question in different registers — who controls the story, and what it costs when you refuse to let them.

Pip: Trade talks, exhibition walls, hospital waiting rooms, bus terminals — the power dynamics don't change, just the scenery.

Mara: Next time, we'll see what else surfaces. There's clearly more to say.