This day, 27 August, in 1975, Chairman Mao Zedong met with Cambodian statesman, Norodom Sihanouk, and others, after their arrival in Beijing from Pyongyang by special train;...
“It’s just like sending gifts to myself!”
It’s often said that the charm of Taobao is in the 4-day-long narrative it establishes. You order the products distractedly on your phone, return your full attention to work or family… and then, just when you have forgotten all about it, there’s a surprise knock at the door!
Well, I guess I’m too materialistic for any of that forgetting. The childish excitement of Christmas Eve still dances in me for all 4 days. There’s also the nagging awareness that I may need to send...
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;...
From my days selling tea in the UK, some moments stand out in my memory. In one, a lady comes into our shop (a national chain) and takes from the shelf her usual packet of cheap Darjeeling.
The season is Spring. Coincidentally, we have just received a consignment of First Flush Darjeeling from Margaret’s Hope in West Bengal. I’ve only just sampled this new “premium” version for myself. The experience is an epiphany to me (as one who prizes Chinese tea above all others!) The difference between this and the...
They call it “herbal medicine”. And in this house, this week, it’s everywhere.
I call it “horrible medicine”. But I actually quite like it.
It smells of fragrant-soil and it tastes like fragrant-soil-with-brown-sugar.
Apparently, it has an English name; Isatis Tinctoria. But, like the names for all those things popular only in China, that’s not really an English name.
The brew hasn’t caught on elsewhere; what Americans call root-beer is a completely different thing. But here it’s enormous. As I write, your local pharmacy is selling fast out.
There’s no scientific evidence that...
