This day, 2 June, in 1969, Premier Zhou Enlai pointed out in guiding the work of the “International Issues Research Group” formed earlier in the day by...
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...
You don’t need to come to Asia to encounter bamboo; it’s there on the steering wheel of the E-Type Jaguar, on umbrella handles, there on that corporal punishment device once kept behind teachers’ desks.
Even edible bamboo was a concept familiar to me before I arrived here; bamboo shoots in tins were part of my English mother’s cooking in the 1980s. But, as with many things we already know about China, we’re not prepared for the abundance or the variety.
The bamboo shoots that appear in Chinese dishes in the real...
Tea is supposed to be zero calories. So what is this shiny slick on the surface of yesterday’s drink?
It’s like the blue-brown façades of blocks in China’s fourth tier. It’s like a rolled scarab carapace. It’s like the squeezed temple of a liquid crystal.
Shake it and the metallic tectons quite collapse, broad shards collecting into one bronze rim-stain. Perhaps this is why we are frequently warned not to drink tea that’s been left overnight.
Well, if there is a swollen cigarette-butt floating on top, let me concur; that cup may...
This is the era of big data. There was more digital data created, stored and shared in the past 2 years than all of the digital data existing before that.
What used to be a computer thing is now a watch and fridge and spy-camera thing. Lots more ones and zeroes flying around.
Yes, but this 2-year rule has been true for far longer than 2 years. The “big data” term is 800 bytes, which has somehow survived that exponential data churn unharmed, used by humans for decades, most continually...
