This is a scene from Shenzhen shortly after midnight of the Chinese New Year. The whole city has been celebrating the year of the ox with plenty of noise.

Terracotta Typewriter would like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous Spring Festival. Let us welcome the year of the bull/cow/ox/water buffalo.

We’re still convinced that the cartoonish figures of the golden calf on sale at the jewlery store look suspiciously like the cartoon calf, Mooby, from the Kevin Smith movie Dogma. We’ll go in search of photos later to show a comparison.

春节快乐！恭喜发财！

We would like to extend our gratitude to Xujun Eberlein, author of Apologies Forthcoming and Inside-Out China, for helping to promote Terracotta Typewriter. Ms. Eberlein was also generous enough to send us an essay to publish in our first issue.

We look forward to reading more of Ms. Eberlein’s work in the future.

Here is a review of Apologies Forthcoming.

Today, we received an e-mail from the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Foundation in New Jersey. The contents were more economic doom and gloom. Apparently, the foundation has reduced the grants it makes for poetry projects, mostly due to the rising cost of hosting the poetry festival. While the cost of the festival as doubled in recent years, the funding given to the foundation has decreased 30%. This is never good news for any organization (profit or non-profit). Even though the Dodge Foundation is trying to cut costs and eliminate some grants, it’s important to take note that it has donated more than US$13 million to poetry projects since 1986.

In these difficult economic times, we have to remember that literacy is important. Those of us with the funds to do so should support projects that promote literacy and the arts. The rest of us should take advantage of what is offered in bookstores and libraries.