This day, 21 May, in 2014, the fourth summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Shanghai. President Xi Jinping presided...
In the West, specialist sellers choose to distribute themselves evenly across the city, trying to become someone’s “local”.
But, here in Asia, different sellers; direct competitors, often choose to huddle together in a street or market renowned throughout the city.
Buying tea in China, I feel like I’m the king, or at least riding the wave of a buyer’s market. I enter one of these markets, then “kick some tyres” talking to sellers, getting some idea of prices. Maybe I taste a bit, but I don’t buy; you see, I’ve promised...
Nanjing isn’t an English verb. It probably never will be.
Like Darjeeling or Wyoming, our brains probably have to work hard to stop thinking of these proper nouns as verbs. That “ing” ending is a red herring we all know better than to actually hear.
Shanghai, of course, is a verb. It’s a bit like “press-ganged”. If you’ve forgotten the meaning, go and check out the Charlie Chaplin film ‘Shanghaied’.
Japan is an English verb as well. If an object is japanned, it has been finished with a thick shiny lacquer;...
It’s much easier to get maple syrup these days. Canadian president Justin Trudeau just announced the construction of a new pipeline to export it to the rest of the world (…or was that another liquid commodity?)
Anyway, when I was a child, our family received a bottle of this treasured syrup. Before that day, we had only known the “simulated” stuff. We then waited months before opening this bottle of “the real thing”; no moment seemed important enough, no pancake perfect enough.
And then we did open it, only to find...
When I lived in Beijing, students hoping to study abroad would travel half a day to a certain shrine, praying to receive an “offer”. They were practicing hieroglossia.
That’s because they deemed the shrine’s name; 卧佛寺 similar enough to the English word ”offer” to place their trust in, or hedge their bets on, this place for a few hours of their lives. I was intrigued that students treated it as more than just a joke, more than just an excuse for a jaunt. I was curious about this geomantic...
