Within 40 years, contemporary China has faced upheavals of epochal proportion, a transformation that took 400 years for the Western world. Therein, radical changes in politics, philosophy and family relations.
Thanks to the imperial power, the word People (rénmín; 人民)...
Smoking, to the women of 1920s and 30s Shanghai, was terribly classy. It was the epitome of “modeng” (摩登), a transliteration of the English “modern”, which nodded to a radically transformed urban lifestyle amidst a wave of new found...
Best described by Carl Hanson writing for Allrecipes, “When eating Sichuan pepper, you may feel a bit…well, odd”. This month I’m looking at possibly the only food stuff in my 30 years that I’ve eaten that has actually made...
It was known as the Hong Kong Walled City, or The City of Darkness. Infamous for its 30 years of ungoverned vice and much more. Run by the Triads, the city that never saw sunlight was an entity unto...
Everyone who is lucky enough to have known their grandparents has certainly asked them how communication worked in the past.
The many tales of love letters and how long and exciting it was to wait for your beloved one’s reply....
If you were anything like me, when you first arrived in China, you would never have known that one can actually eat bamboo. Scaffolding sure, furniture of course, heck even bedding why not, but as a food, it seemed...
The word “Taiping” is virtually a cliché. As a place name, this is the local equivalent of Springfield in the USA; no less than 47 towns in China go by the moniker. Then the name pops up in Taiping...
Let me guess you’ve heard once or twice that the colour red in China is a symbol of happiness and good luck. Red packets stuffed with red banknotes shower China’s crimson clad brides as firecrackers ping and pop into...
