Supplement

On a second thought, newspaper supplement (副刊) nowadays is very different from that 30 years ago.

In the old days, supplement was filled with monographs and serial novels. Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie began writing their stories that way, and so did Jin Yong (金庸), Ni Kuang (倪匡), and many others in Hong Kong. Now? You could hardly find any serial in a supplement. Most readers are less patient nowadays and would not stand any long stories full of words. New generation novelists tend to publish their stories on the Internet - Han Han (韓寒) and Yang Zhi (楊治) are good examples.

So, what's left for the newspaper supplement? Columnists shift their attention to their daily experience if not making swift comments to some local hot topics. Many reporters directly employed by the newspaper now also served as solicited authors and write articles on food, dresses, cosmetics, cars, houses, and any consumers goods and luxury that you can think of. Many a time you would have a difficulty to tell a proper advertisement from a solicited article with product placement.

Alas, the former is often better written.