Was reading an article at the Washington Post  that started like this:

BEIJING — Chen Zizheng wheeled his shopping cart down one of the aisles at the Carrefour store near his house and paused in front of the bottles of Remy Martin, Johnnie Walker and Hennessy, each selling for an amount about equal to the annual salary he earned when he was a young government employee.

But those days were about 30 years ago, around the time Deng Xiaoping launched China on a path of economic reform and opening up. Now China’s thriving economy has made it possible for people like Chen, a 67-year-old semi-retired aerospace industry official, to plop down 1,168 yuan, or $170, for a bottle of liquor at a branch of a French “hypermarket” chain.

Is there really a need for anyone to read farther?  Haven’t I read about Mr. Chen, or someone suspiciously similar, in one or two or seven hundred China pieces? Haven’t I written about this same person, or his great aunt or niece or neighbour’s cousin and almost bored myself to death before even filing?

Pretty sure I have. We  are all in dire need of new metaphors and new Chinese people to interview.  Or maybe some new questions, perhaps. Just a thought.

It is not really anyone’s fault. Just the nature of the business.

Take this Wall Street Journal articlefor instance (Ian Johnson):

Basically a very interesting, well researched, well written piece about an attempt to revive the now almost extinct Manchu language.  But, oh, right, newspaper articles should be “Relevant” and “Keep up with current events”  so there really is a need to throw in the Urumqi and Lhasa riots (Current events?), which have absolutely nothing to do with the Manchus or their language or other minorities who’re also unrelated but added in anyway just for good measure. If you can piss off some fenqings as you go, all the better. Because, you know, pissing off fenqings is really difficult and something to be proud of.

I really need to find something else to do.