Over 25 years covering China, travel, and culture for publications across the Americas, Asia, and Europe. Author of multiple China titles.
Buenos Aires bars reinvent their cocktails using local ingredients, and earn global recognition
Raging inflation, fluctuating exchange rates and import restrictions in Argentina have made obtaining classic cocktail ingredients from overseas unpredictable
As a result, Buenos Aires bartenders have turned to local replacements to create cocktails and vermouths infused with botanicals harvested from the Andes
Putting China on the Map
The Kangxi emperor is unhappy.
By 1686 the second Qing monarch to rule from Beijing has largely completed the pacification of previously Ming territory, and is following earlier rulers of China in defining his newly established domain on paper.
To ensure the stability of their minority rule the Manchu invaders have adopted the traditions of the Chinese Confucian bureaucracy, at least in public, and support the view that everything of importance is part of their empire. Anything else is minor, barbarian, peripheral and supplicant.
Bath Time with Stalin
A visit to Stalin’s birthplace, Georgia, and his hometown, Gori, reveals a somewhat selective telling of the dictator’s early years and later achievements.
In Tbilisi visitors can see an underground printing press where the young Stalin may have worked, and in a spa town, Tskaltubo, his crumbling private bathroom.
Ice and a slice of luxury: Antarctic cruise includes a deep dive with champagne in a submersible
Visitors to Antarctica have to follow increasingly strict rules to safeguard the wildlife, but travellers can still explore the frozen continent in style
Post Magazine takes a trip on the Seabourn Pursuit, a luxury cruiser equipped with Zodiac inflatables and two submersibles
Review of Daoist Master Changchun's Journey to the West
Review of Daoist Master Changchun's Journey to the West
Asians Learn the Code of the Tango - WSJ
‘I’m the worst daughter ever,” says Delia Hou over the music of a tango orchestra. The lissome 35-year-old Taiwanese-American quotes her parents: “You graduated once and you’re still not married. You graduated twice and you’re still not married.”
Ms. Hou has degrees in astrophysics and law, but here in a milonga, or tango-dancing club, they are forgotten. She and other Asian milongueras speak of the dance in almost metaphysical terms.
“Tango is about what you really genuinely want but you don’t even dare to admit,” says Ms. Hou. “Here you are, you don’t have a serious respectable job, you’re spending your evenings pressing your body against strange men. It’s not really typically Asian behavior.”
‘Ultimate’ travel guides debunked: brief, unoriginal, and often not based on personal research, they are the opposite of what they promise
On the internet, where fooling search engines is far more important than actual content, most ‘ultimate guides to’ a destination are anything but.
Armenia, world’s oldest centre of winemaking, learns how to produce wine in ways ancient and modern after Soviet era
The earliest evidence of winemaking anywhere is in Armenia. After 70 years of Soviet rule, a new generation is reviving old techniques to make wine afresh.
How AI, biometrics and facial recognition at airports could make long queues, especially at check-in and security, a thing of the past
With a doubling of air passengers expected by 2040, ways to make airports less crowded and move passengers through them faster are becoming more necessary
From AI security baggage scanning to facial recognition, the sky is the limit – if the world’s customs and immigration authorities can agree on new standards
Preserving China's Humiliation
The anniversary of the Summer Palace's destruction is an occasion for flagellating foreigners, writes Peter Neville-Hadley in a Wall Street Journal op-ed....
Will Beijing earn Unesco World Heritage listing for its much changed old city? There’s precedent for it
Using a Western interpretation of a 2,400-year-old document, Beijing seeks Unesco’s stamp for the centre of its ancient capital – much of it razed, badly restored, completely rebuilt, or actually modern communist monuments only decades old.
‘Ultimate’ travel guides debunked: brief, unoriginal, and often not based on personal research, they are the opposite of what they promise
@e’re using the word “ultimate” here in a special sense largely unknown outside the world of digital drivel. Not “the best achievable of its kind”, nor “something final or fundamental”, but “a brief and haphazard collection of poorly written material based on little or no personal experience or expertise, that has been given its title to attract more readers.”
Review of 'Sparks', by Ian Johnson
Two book reviews, mostly notably of Ian Johnson's new and important 'Sparks'. In The Correspondent, October-December 2023, pp 46–47.
Bookshelf: Judging China by its Cover - WSJ
Jonathan Fenby's "Tiger Head, Snake Tails" is a self-described "one-stop account of where the fastest growing major nation stands." But chances are no one else will describe it that way. The first problem is that the reader ends up knowing many different views on where China stands, but not which one is right.
Review | The Emperor’s New Road: the inside story of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative
Jonathan Hillman’s new book offers a reality check on Beijing’s global infrastructure projects, describing: ‘Ports without ships, trains without passengers, airports without flights, and free trade zones largely free of trade’