https://www.scmp.com/rss/322658/feed In-depth features and interviews, and photo essays en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Stephen McCarty Stephen McCarty This correspondent never needs one of those “please wake for meals” stickers when flying. Because he’s always awake – unlike his regular travel partner, who often sleeps through taxiing, take-off, landing, taxiing and much in between. To the exhausted insomniac, in the air or on the ground, the ability to sleep whenever, wherever, must seem a blessing. Or is it a magic trick that can be learned? A skill to be mastered? To sleep, perchance to wake four or five times in the night to go to the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3279162/how-get-good-nights-sleep-overstimulated-world-sleeping-well-really-skill-insomniacs-can-learn?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3279162/how-get-good-nights-sleep-overstimulated-world-sleeping-well-really-skill-insomniacs-can-learn?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 21 Sep 2024 03:15:14 +0000 Peta Tomlinson Peta Tomlinson Every weekend, Hong Kong Island restaurant owners Philip and Madeline Taylor escape from the city to rest and recharge at their retreat in Tai Po. They had bought the place in late 2022, attracted to the surrounding hiking trails and sea views. “We really liked the village life, simple and relaxed – more so than Mid-Levels living,” says Madeline. Rather than a mere weekender, the three-storey house needed to feel like a holiday destination – “as if you’ve got off a plane and arrived somewhere... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3278825/kirinlab-gave-village-house-beachy-redesign-fuses-balinese-and-japandi-styles?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/design-interiors/article/3278825/kirinlab-gave-village-house-beachy-redesign-fuses-balinese-and-japandi-styles?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 19 Sep 2024 04:15:08 +0000 Kate Whitehead Kate Whitehead My father began his career as a soldier. By the time I was born in Beijing in 1967, he was an officer at a state-owned corporation. My mother was a kindergarten teacher. My dad had only one day off every two weeks and my mother also worked long hours, so until I went to school I stayed with my grandmother. I saw my parents when they had a weekend off. My grandmother lived in a big siheyuan (courtyard house). She had good relations with the neighbours and all of us kids played together in the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3278871/fashion-star-guo-pei-her-upcoming-m-show-and-unexpected-request-rihanna?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3278871/fashion-star-guo-pei-her-upcoming-m-show-and-unexpected-request-rihanna?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 Sep 2024 23:15:09 +0000 My mother was 16 when she arrived in Hong Kong in the 1950s, fleeing famine on the mainland. Not long after she arrived, she met my father, who had also escaped the famine. They married in 1954. My birth is recorded as December 30, 1956, though my mother insisted that I was actually born a few days later, on January 1. Perhaps a mistake was made in the paperwork over the public holiday. My mother was illiterate and we didn’t have the money to give red packets to the nurses and midwives as was... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3278860/hong-kongs-dr-fauci-yuen-kwok-yung-growing-poor-and-weathering-sars-and-covid-19?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3278860/hong-kongs-dr-fauci-yuen-kwok-yung-growing-poor-and-weathering-sars-and-covid-19?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 Sep 2024 00:15:08 +0000 The phrase a “new Cold War” is regularly tossed about in discussions of mainland China, the United States and Taiwan. Russian-American pundit Dmitri Alperovitch has even gone so far as to declare that “Taiwan is the new Berlin.” Mostly, it is the hawks on both sides who have kept this kind of “new Cold War” talk in circulation, but if some hardliners are touting a new Cold War, how might this version compare to the original? The spy-novel genre of the 1960s offers one measure for comparison, and... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3278237/how-cold-war-and-largely-imagined-china-made-spy-novels-cool?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3278237/how-cold-war-and-largely-imagined-china-made-spy-novels-cool?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 Sep 2024 00:15:08 +0000 Composed simply of sour cream, cream cheese and almond powder, the recipe for the buttery-soft 1963 Mandarin Cheesecake has remained unchanged since the founding of the Mandarin Oriental 61 years ago. But not all recipes stay the same, especially in a city as fast-changing as Hong Kong. “The hotel is a part of the social fabric of the city,” says general manager Michael Groll. “It’s like a living room for the local community here, and that comes with a bit of responsibility to take care of these... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3278238/how-mandarin-oriental-hong-kongs-eateries-are-honouring-their-legacies-21st-century?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3278238/how-mandarin-oriental-hong-kongs-eateries-are-honouring-their-legacies-21st-century?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Sep 2024 04:15:08 +0000 Kate Whitehead Kate Whitehead I was born in Hawaii in 1968 in the early morning hours after Richard Nixon was elected president of the United States. My mother contemplated naming me Richard, but thankfully she was also a Beatles fan and ended up naming me Paul. I have one sibling, a brother who is 14 months older than me. It was just the two of us in a small Japanese family. He was the eldest son, which meant I was out of luck – he got all the love, attention and adoration because in Japanese culture the firstborn son is... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276940/comedian-paul-ogata-his-own-words-why-robin-williams-and-andy-bumatai-were-early-role-models-and-i?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3276940/comedian-paul-ogata-his-own-words-why-robin-williams-and-andy-bumatai-were-early-role-models-and-i?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 05 Sep 2024 22:15:08 +0000 Suie Jung Wong and Horatio Thompson were both raised on farms in New Zealand. Suie, a young woman from a Chinese family, fell for Horatio, a dashing Maori soldier who coached her in basketball. Despite her family’s disapproval and threats to send her back to China when she became pregnant, Suie followed her heart and in 1957 married into Horatio’s warm and welcoming Maori whanau (extended family). “They met in high school in Wairarapa and fell madly in love,” says Maia Te Hira, the Thompsons’... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3276880/new-zealanders-maori-chinese-descent-navigating-their-dual-heritage-and-embracing-their-roots?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3276880/new-zealanders-maori-chinese-descent-navigating-their-dual-heritage-and-embracing-their-roots?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 03 Sep 2024 21:15:07 +0000 I step out of my hotel in the old city of Barkhor – one of the few parts of Lhasa, Tibet, where foreign tourists are allowed to walk unaccompanied by a guide – and into a bustling faux-medieval bazaar where steam pours from big bubbling cauldrons in tea-houses and rickshaws run amok. The roads are lined with whitewashed terrace buildings built in the traditional style from stone, clay and wood, and embellished with the “endless knot”, the “wheel of life” and other symbols of Tibetan... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3276522/exploring-lhasa-tibets-sky-high-capital-pairs-history-and-modernity-against-striking-plateau?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3276522/exploring-lhasa-tibets-sky-high-capital-pairs-history-and-modernity-against-striking-plateau?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 Aug 2024 03:45:09 +0000 Today it’s hard to imagine such a place existed, but once, on the Sino-Siberian border, there was a kind of Wild West town, similar to those seen in California and Australia. At times of tension between Russia and China, that stretch has been contentious, but for a while in the 1880s, a raft of fortune-seekers descended, searching for gold, from the encampment on the banks of a tributary of a tributary of the mighty Amur river, called Zheltuga. At least 10,000 came within a few months, around... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3276514/tales-old-zheltuga-rise-and-equally-abrupt-fall-lawless-19th-century-gold-rush-republic-russia-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3276514/tales-old-zheltuga-rise-and-equally-abrupt-fall-lawless-19th-century-gold-rush-republic-russia-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 Aug 2024 03:15:15 +0000 Not for nothing is the FIRST International Film Festival oft-referred to as “China’s Sundance”, after the legendary indie-cinema love-in, founded by Robert Redford and held every year in the US state of Utah. And like Sundance, you make your way to the city of Xining, in central China, if you want to catch up with the latest trends in Chinese independent cinema. Perhaps take in experimental films that reflect the issues facing the youth of today, maybe get a chance to mingle with some of the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3276504/unstoppable-asias-first-female-ufc-champion-zhang-weilis-story-told-gripping-new-documentary?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3276504/unstoppable-asias-first-female-ufc-champion-zhang-weilis-story-told-gripping-new-documentary?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 30 Aug 2024 06:45:09 +0000 Kate Whitehead Kate Whitehead My roots are in rural Buckinghamshire (southeast England), which is where my parents’ families come from. My mother’s side were farmers and my father had been part of a family brickmaking business. He managed to quarrel with everybody in both families, so we were rootless for the first eight years of my life, going around the country looking for new ways to make his fortune and by and large not succeeding. My younger sister, Alicia, and I had minimal contact with the (extended) family and other... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3275974/how-i-became-one-first-women-hong-kong-civil-service-oxford-university?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3275974/how-i-became-one-first-women-hong-kong-civil-service-oxford-university?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Aug 2024 03:15:10 +0000 Although travel agencies have been vanishing from high streets worldwide, it seems that reports of their complete demise may have been exaggerated. For those concerned above all to obtain the best price, the internet now provides the opportunity to compare the costs of 17 alternative ways of going almost anywhere, and then 17 ways of booking, be it flights, hotels or entire packages. Agencies working with narrow margins on high volumes of straight-from-the-brochure sales have been hit hard in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3275299/fancy-flying-volcano-or-fishing-mountain-lake-travel-consultants-are-here-execute-your-wildest?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3275299/fancy-flying-volcano-or-fishing-mountain-lake-travel-consultants-are-here-execute-your-wildest?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 27 Aug 2024 08:45:09 +0000 The Italian city of Prato, second largest city in Tuscany, 17km northwest of Florence, has seen the greatest number of Chinese immigrants to Italy since the mid-1990s. In 1989, there were 38 Chinese people in Prato. Today, they represent more than a quarter of the total population of roughly 192,500, with about 3 per cent having chosen to become naturalised Italians. Prato’s ethnically Chinese citizens hail mostly from Zhejiang province, particularly the city of Wenzhou and its surroundings.... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3275661/one-italys-first-city-councillors-chinese-descent-marco-wong-helped-shepherd-immigrants-through?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3275661/one-italys-first-city-councillors-chinese-descent-marco-wong-helped-shepherd-immigrants-through?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Aug 2024 02:45:09 +0000 Nik Zanella had long suspected that surfing had been around in China for a thousand years or more. During extensive academic research, numerous references had cropped up in ancient poems and literature, suggesting that wave-riding may have featured as early as the Tang and Song dynasties. But the Italian had failed to unearth any significant visual evidence until, by chance, he came across a mural at Qiongzhu temple in landlocked Kunming, Yunnan province, back in 2006. Right before Zanella’s... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3275643/were-chinese-monks-original-surfer-dudes-how-italian-coach-discovered-sports-chinese-roots-kunming?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3275643/were-chinese-monks-original-surfer-dudes-how-italian-coach-discovered-sports-chinese-roots-kunming?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 Aug 2024 23:45:19 +0000 Suji Owen Suji Owen Perhaps it’s because I am constantly digging around in the podcast charts that I notice these things but I am sure that there are more Asian podcast hosts in the food category than in any other. Somebody needs to do a PhD on why this might be but could the reasons be related to the fact that despite having friends and family of all stripes on all continents, my real eating buddies have always been Asian? If that feels like tricky ground, my own experience of being a Korean immigrant in Britain... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3275572/5-food-and-cooking-podcasts-whet-your-appetite-hosted-food-science-writers-comedians-and-more?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3275572/5-food-and-cooking-podcasts-whet-your-appetite-hosted-food-science-writers-comedians-and-more?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 Aug 2024 09:15:15 +0000 “What was difficult for me was learning how to cook, smile to camera, have a bit of a laugh and not cut my fingers off. That was hard.” So says – with trademark Australian humour and candidness – Justine Schofield, a television personality enduringly popular enough to have just wrapped yet another season of Everyday Gourmet, a studio-based show garnished with an international-travel element. “We’ve been doing it for 14 years,” she says by Zoom from her home in Sydney, “and the last eight or so... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3275127/masterchef-australia-alum-and-everyday-gourmet-host-justine-schofield-back-road-new-season-time-its?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/film-tv/article/3275127/masterchef-australia-alum-and-everyday-gourmet-host-justine-schofield-back-road-new-season-time-its?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 23 Aug 2024 04:00:12 +0000 Kate Whitehead Kate Whitehead I was born in Hong Kong in 1961 to an Austrian mother and a Chinese father. My father worked in the family business, part of the Shaw Studios, on the distribution side. In those days, respectable women didn’t work and from what I understand my mother wasn’t allowed to work. She would say she was “only” a housewife, but what an incredible job that is. When I was a little girl and people asked me what I wanted to be, I’d always say “A cook and a mummy”. Today, I am a mother to three, grandmother... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/fashion/article/3275153/run-run-shaws-grandniece-claudia-shaw-growing-kowloon-girl-working-celine-and-chanel-and-becoming?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/fashion/article/3275153/run-run-shaws-grandniece-claudia-shaw-growing-kowloon-girl-working-celine-and-chanel-and-becoming?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 21 Aug 2024 22:00:10 +0000 With poised precision, Wing Yeung portions out a thimble of blackened tea leaves and drops them into a preheated teapot fashioned from Jianshui purple clay. Yeung, the founder of Hong Kong-based tea experts Being & Tea, fills the vessel with scalding water to prepare the brew, then, after a short while, inverts the teapot over a glass decanter. Out pours a mahogany-coloured ribbon of what can be considered one of the most prized liquids in the world – ounce for ounce, its value stands shoulder... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3274779/why-rare-chinese-teas-are-captivating-hong-kong-connoisseurs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3274779/why-rare-chinese-teas-are-captivating-hong-kong-connoisseurs?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 20 Aug 2024 01:45:08 +0000 Hazel Cheung was understandably elated being declared Miss Chinese International’s second runner-up on February 10, 1991. TVB’s Miss Hong Kong may have been the more typical local girl’s dream, but the then-21-year-old had just fled a miserable wintry Montreal, living with her parents, to represent the Canadian city at the Hong Kong broadcaster’s other annual beauty pageant. “I finished high school in the UK before going to Montreal,” says Cheung, born in Hong Kong to parents from Indonesia. And... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3274462/hong-kong-beauty-queen-hazel-cheung-lost-her-beloved-business-and-became-widow-then-unexpectedly?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3274462/hong-kong-beauty-queen-hazel-cheung-lost-her-beloved-business-and-became-widow-then-unexpectedly?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Aug 2024 03:15:10 +0000 Apart from their love of the written word, American authors Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-64), Henry David Thoreau (1817-62), and Louisa May Alcott (1832-88) have something else in common. All of them made their home in Concord, a small town in Massachusetts, in the United States. Established by English settlers in 1635 as Musketaquid, an Algonquian word meaning “grassy plain”, the town was renamed Concord later that year, suggesting peaceful agreements with Native... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3274771/why-small-town-northwest-us-home-so-many-authors-emerson-alcott?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3274771/why-small-town-northwest-us-home-so-many-authors-emerson-alcott?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Aug 2024 23:15:11 +0000 When a 23-year-old Eurasian woman calling herself Maria Wendt touched down at an airfield near Los Angeles in 1936, the press flocked onto the runway to capture the first images of her descending from the plane. Pathé, Reuters, Gaumont, all sent crews to capture the “woman of mystery” who had made fools of the FBI, who were none too happy about it. As the woman was escorted away by plain-clothes policemen, she pulled down her black hat to cover her face and wrapped her coat tight around her. The... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3274766/og-war-drugs-when-23-year-old-shanghai-nurse-was-busted-smuggling-us1-million-heroin-us?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3274766/og-war-drugs-when-23-year-old-shanghai-nurse-was-busted-smuggling-us1-million-heroin-us?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Aug 2024 07:45:11 +0000 Daven Wu Daven Wu In the Kimberley region, everything is magnified. Somehow, here, in what Australians call the Top End, and perhaps because you’re so far from any town, the nights are darker. Almost pitch black – the better to show off the Milky Way, thick with shimmering constellations and dense with red and blue nebula. By day, the horizon, under a domed sky of sapphire blue lined with white, hangs in the gathering heat. Despite the soft mincing steps of black-necked storks on sea-wet reefs exposed by the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3274542/australias-top-end-cruise-showcases-northern-kimberley-regions-majestic-natural-beauty?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3274542/australias-top-end-cruise-showcases-northern-kimberley-regions-majestic-natural-beauty?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 15 Aug 2024 22:15:08 +0000 I was born blind. The biggest challenge for people with disabilities is that there is a balance that families have to go through – are you overly protective or do you allow people to be independent? Families sometimes err on [the side of] being too mindful of safety and protection, so you lose the skill set of being able to be independent. My family erred on the independent side. I was born in 1973, in Michigan (in the United States). I have an older brother, Mark, and a younger sister, Beth. My... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3274306/how-us-justice-richard-bernstein-fought-thrive-while-living-blindness?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3274306/how-us-justice-richard-bernstein-fought-thrive-while-living-blindness?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 14 Aug 2024 01:00:21 +0000 You may find yourself on a Hong Kong beach, and you may find yourself under a blistering blue sky. And you may ask yourself, what’s this weird light in the sky? Though there’s not a breath of wind, the sea froths, rises a metre or two, then surges. The shoreline deflates then another line of surf develops, and the water surges again. If you are acquainted with local weather lore, you may know there is probably a typhoon just out to sea, and it is probably inbound. Nowadays, you can just take out... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3274135/how-are-typhoons-tracked-inside-hong-kong-observatorys-fight-predict-extreme-weather-events?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3274135/how-are-typhoons-tracked-inside-hong-kong-observatorys-fight-predict-extreme-weather-events?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 Aug 2024 05:15:10 +0000 When Flora Chong Mei-ling was a student in Hong Kong, she didn’t know much about colonialism, let alone Chinese history. She says her history textbooks stopped abruptly at 1911, the year the Qing dynasty ended and the Chinese Republic began. She didn’t think much of it and, in 1978, a teenage Chong emigrated to Canada. It wasn’t until 1997 that she learned more about China’s modern history, specifically, reading Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking (1991). She was overwhelmed to learn about the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3273843/how-canadian-museum-preserving-asias-wwii-history-inside-wongavery-asia-pacific-peace-museum?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3273843/how-canadian-museum-preserving-asias-wwii-history-inside-wongavery-asia-pacific-peace-museum?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Aug 2024 04:15:08 +0000 My dad’s side of the family is in the shipping industry. My grandfather was an engineer in the navy and my father got on a bulk carrier when he was 18 and went around the world. He moved to Hong Kong when he was 24 and built a career out of bulk carrier shipping. I was born in Hong Kong in 1992 and have an older sister and a younger brother. A couple of months ago my sister and I went back to the Matilda Hospital, where we were born, and put our handprints on the Matilda babies’ handprint... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3273338/filmmaker-thomas-overs-transnational-life-kuala-lumpur-durham-and-manila-and-driving-food-truck?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3273338/filmmaker-thomas-overs-transnational-life-kuala-lumpur-durham-and-manila-and-driving-food-truck?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 07 Aug 2024 03:15:10 +0000 Danielle Busch admits it wasn’t just the failed attempt at making wine at home that encouraged her and her husband to try making mead. “He was watching Vikings on the History Channel at the time, and he’d played Dungeons & Dragons a lot before that,” chuckles the co-founder of California-based Batch Mead. “So, yes, he had heard of mead, but, like many people, he wasn’t quite sure what it was.” Indeed, if The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones thrust mead into the spotlight – “I welcome you to... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3273340/blame-game-thrones-mead-could-be-next-big-drinks-trend-gen-z?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3273340/blame-game-thrones-mead-could-be-next-big-drinks-trend-gen-z?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 06 Aug 2024 23:15:08 +0000 It was mid-autumn on the high seas, and we were halfway across the Taiwan Strait, beating into a northeasterly wind. It could have been a much kinder southwesterly, had we sailed a week earlier, but we were starting a new life, a sailing adventure, and saying goodbye to Hong Kong had taken a lot longer than we thought it would. I winched our reefed mainsail in just a little tighter, and tried to point a degree higher, as we clawed our way upwind into a cold grey rain towards Taiwan. The... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3272907/couple-who-left-hong-kong-sail-high-seas-islanding-hopping-taiwan-japan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3272907/couple-who-left-hong-kong-sail-high-seas-islanding-hopping-taiwan-japan?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Aug 2024 00:45:10 +0000 It is not until my taxi is cruising smoothly down the expressway southeast of Lijiang, having escaped the picturesque but overcrowded maze of tourist-thronged alleyways, that I think to ask my driver her name. “It’s Ms Jiang,” she says, “you know, like Jiang Jieshi [Chiang Kai-shek], who fought Mao and then fled to Taiwan.” She digs around in the glove compartment and hands me her card, having established that my dinosaur smartphone doesn’t support WeChat, an essential app for swapping contact... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3272812/who-built-first-bridge-over-yangtze-river-unlikely-tale-chinese-slave-soldier-and-tycoon-jiang?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3272812/who-built-first-bridge-over-yangtze-river-unlikely-tale-chinese-slave-soldier-and-tycoon-jiang?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Aug 2024 03:15:08 +0000 Freelance writer Sandra Göldi and the founder of Finoverse – the organiser of Hong Kong FinTech Week – would often cross paths in the same workout class at Soho House, where they are both members. It was early 2024 and Finoverse was seeking talent like Göldi, who, after a round of interviews, signed a contract to work for the company. Not bad for a few chats after spin class. But in many ways, that is what these members’ clubs are for: informal networking with select strata of society. “This... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3272561/opening-doors-whats-future-hong-kongs-private-membership-clubs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3272561/opening-doors-whats-future-hong-kongs-private-membership-clubs?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 31 Jul 2024 04:31:25 +0000 British author Nicola Twilley, frequent contributor to The New Yorker and co-presenter of the popular Gastropod food history and science podcast, has a beef with refrigeration. “I love a cold beer and ice cream as much as the next person,” she says from her Los Angeles base. “I would never want to live without my refrigerator.” But in her tartly named new book, Frostbite, which is as lucid, entertaining and fact-rich as her podcast, she examines the consequences of the development of a third... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3272045/how-fridges-transformed-way-we-get-and-eat-our-food-not-all-it-positive-according-book-frostbite?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/food-drink/article/3272045/how-fridges-transformed-way-we-get-and-eat-our-food-not-all-it-positive-according-book-frostbite?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 Jul 2024 10:00:16 +0000 Legendary Cantopop singer Frances Yip Lai-yee has come full circle, returning to her roots in Hong Kong to celebrate the city’s rich musical heritage. But while her 55-year career has been illustrious, it is also linked inextricably to that of her mentors, James Wong Jim and Joseph Koo Ka-fai, who revolutionised Cantopop with their innovative blend of Chinese and Western music, as well as lyrics melding literary Chinese and colloquial Cantonese. Yip’s hits have resonated with Chinese-speaking... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3271853/cantopop-star-frances-yip-revisits-her-work-james-wong-jim-and-joseph-koo-ka-fai-put-hong-kongs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3271853/cantopop-star-frances-yip-revisits-her-work-james-wong-jim-and-joseph-koo-ka-fai-put-hong-kongs?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 26 Jul 2024 11:00:09 +0000 My daughter has just returned from her gap-year travels, sunburned and unkempt, and bursting with tales of adventure. A mixture of volunteering and solo travel, plus six months of physically demanding paid work to fund the year, has led to staggering personal growth. I hardly recognise the independent, financially prudent, culturally aware and helpful adult who has come back to replace the schoolgirl who left. Then again, it has been a year and a lot can happen in 12 months. Who can say that... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3271884/6-podcasts-about-gap-years-stir-your-wanderlust-cricketer-candidates-mensa-and-mars-mission?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3271884/6-podcasts-about-gap-years-stir-your-wanderlust-cricketer-candidates-mensa-and-mars-mission?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 25 Jul 2024 22:00:13 +0000 My grandfather on my dad’s side was a judge in Pennsylvania. He and his wife travelled the world on cargo ships. They played checkers and dominoes with the crew, visited different ports of call and sent us postcards. Following his adventures gave me the travel bug. I was born in California and grew up in North Bay near San Francisco. My dad was in private financial planning and very outdoor-centric. He took my younger brother and me camping a lot. I was a sporty kid and got into swimming when I... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3271115/hong-kong-environmental-entrepreneur-doug-woodrings-serial-start-ups-his-own-words?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/short-reads/article/3271115/hong-kong-environmental-entrepreneur-doug-woodrings-serial-start-ups-his-own-words?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Jul 2024 03:15:08 +0000 At 9.20am on February 15, 2013, a meteorite exploded above the city of Chelyabinsk, in Western Russia. Burning a streak of light across the morning sky, the superbolide, or fireball, about 18 metres in diameter, weighing roughly 12,000 tonnes and travelling at 19km per second, produced on impact a seismic wave recorded at magnitude 2.7, making it an estimated 30 times stronger than that of the first atomic bomb. Though buildings were damaged by the blast and more than 1,600 people injured, no... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3270884/christian-pilards-little-museum-world-hong-kong-pet-prehistoric-mammoth-or-marvel-meteorite?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3270884/christian-pilards-little-museum-world-hong-kong-pet-prehistoric-mammoth-or-marvel-meteorite?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Jul 2024 09:00:09 +0000 Holidays and reading go together like suntans and sunscreen, flights and delays, passports and control. And while bookshops may be vanishing from high streets across the globe, they are still fixtures at most major airports. This sacred pairing of book and holiday is nothing new; it’s not even modern, according to British academic Anthony Bale. As he writes in his fascinating study of medieval holiday habits, A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages (2023): “To travel was to read, to read was to... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3270579/your-summer-reads-2024-sorted-beach-lounging-long-plane-rides?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3270579/your-summer-reads-2024-sorted-beach-lounging-long-plane-rides?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Jul 2024 00:00:12 +0000 Few visitors to Buenos Aires leave without seeing a choreographed tango show, the male performers in sharp suits, the women in slit skirts, stocking tops and towering heels. Street dancers offer to entwine themselves with passers-by, their considerable décolletage pressed close for a moment’s photo opportunity. Couples spin and tilt on handkerchief-sized stages between restaurant tables to draw in customers. But this is a different world to that of the Argentinian capital’s milongas: social... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3270742/why-more-asian-women-are-flocking-buenos-aires-milongas-argentine-tango-beyond-tourist-traps?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3270742/why-more-asian-women-are-flocking-buenos-aires-milongas-argentine-tango-beyond-tourist-traps?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 18 Jul 2024 11:00:08 +0000 My parents are college sweethearts from Bombay, India. They moved to Taiwan for business opportunities and both speak Mandarin. I’m a “Made in Taiwan” baby, born in 1988. My younger sister and I had the typical American life in Taiwan: we went to the American School and the American Club; had a front yard and a backyard; and celebrated Halloween and St Patrick’s Day. In 1995, my dad decided to move his import-export business to Hong Kong, as a window into China. My mum was nervous about the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3269902/spark-madness-cookbook-author-simran-savlani-culture-shock-creating-crack-sauce-and-hosting-dinners?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3269902/spark-madness-cookbook-author-simran-savlani-culture-shock-creating-crack-sauce-and-hosting-dinners?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 16 Jul 2024 03:15:10 +0000 Alighting from the Guangzhou Metro at Gangding Station, I’m faced with navigating a swanky, subterranean shopping plaza lined with cosmetics stores and fast-food outlets while trying to find an exit. When I finally reach ground level, Tianhe District rocks to a chorus of car horns and the clamour of human traffic. There’s a gargantuan electronics mall opposite, hotels either side of me and a forest of skyscrapers blocking the horizon. The air, warmed by a million purring air conditioners, is... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3270093/filmmaker-yang-manmans-floating-population-club-community-art-space-guangzhous-rootless?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3270093/filmmaker-yang-manmans-floating-population-club-community-art-space-guangzhous-rootless?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Jul 2024 03:45:09 +0000 The village appears like a mirage, within reach yet vexingly distant, after a hurried, three-day trek through Dolpa, the largest, but third-most sparsely peopled of Nepal’s 77 districts. Size: 7,890 sq km. Population: roughly 43,000. Altitude: up to 7,625 metres. Across the border: China. In Dolpo, the culturally Tibetan pocket of Dolpa, atop the mud walls of the rammed-earth houses, flat roofs are stacked with firewood and hay, for winter. The 1,000-year-old Ribo Bumpa Monastery stands sentinel... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3269860/farmers-trade-fungi-motorbikes-rural-nepal-mushrooming-road-use-threatens-rural-ways?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3269860/farmers-trade-fungi-motorbikes-rural-nepal-mushrooming-road-use-threatens-rural-ways?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Jul 2024 00:15:09 +0000 I was born in Macau in 1943 but don’t have any documentary proof of that; Chinese midwives didn’t keep such records in those days, and anyway, I was born during wartime, and everything was pretty disordered. Later on, I learned that our family lived above the “Jik Lei” bicycle shop on Rua do Cinco de Outubro, down on the Inner Harbour – it’s not very far from the Hong Kong Temple. We were five children in our family, but only four of us lived to be adults. Unfortunately, my oldest brother died... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3268462/he-swam-hong-kong-after-being-jailed-china-now-his-barrister-son-helps-refugees?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3268462/he-swam-hong-kong-after-being-jailed-china-now-his-barrister-son-helps-refugees?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 05 Jul 2024 23:15:08 +0000 When newly appointed Penguin China general manager Jo Lusby hosted her international bosses in Beijing for the first time, in 2005, she suggested the publishing executives meet the author of a then-bestselling book, Wolf Totem. On the face of it, a Chinese-language novel about wolves and shepherds written by a pseudonymous Beijing intellectual seemed unlikely to captivate an international audience. But the writer, Jiang Rong, charmed the executives with his atmospheric descriptions, based... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3268250/early-coup-peppa-pig-michelle-obama-and-harry-potter-ex-penguin-china-chief?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3268250/early-coup-peppa-pig-michelle-obama-and-harry-potter-ex-penguin-china-chief?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Jun 2024 23:45:08 +0000 When Wu Tingfang, the first English-speaking Chinese minister to the United States (serving 1897-1902), arrived in Washington, the stakes could not have been higher. China’s existence as a state was in play, and Wu’s diplomacy and careful cultivation of a bilateral relationship with the US would play a key role in ensuring his country’s survival. A key element of Wu’s background that enabled him to play such a pivotal role in US-China relations was the unconventional diplomat’s combination of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3268112/how-former-hong-kong-court-translator-became-chinas-man-washington-crucial-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3268112/how-former-hong-kong-court-translator-became-chinas-man-washington-crucial-time?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 28 Jun 2024 23:15:08 +0000 After waking up at 6.30am, Claudia Ke brewed herself a cup of tea. The grey, drizzly January sky over Burgundy, France, somehow reminded her of winters in Shanghai, where she had lived for six years. It had been five months since she had arrived in the famous French wine region, in August 2023, and she was still adjusting to the laid-back lifestyle. The 35-year-old’s life in China had been defined first by the years she worked for fashion magazine Vogue in Beijing and then Macy’s department... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3267567/running-china-single-women-their-thirties-escaping-study-west?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3267567/running-china-single-women-their-thirties-escaping-study-west?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Jun 2024 23:15:11 +0000 In the 1920s, the pirates of the South China coast faced a new threat to their livelihood of smuggling, kidnapping and hijacking, one that gave them significant pause for thought – anti-piracy submarines. Britain’s Royal Navy, overstuffed with ships, crews and submarines after World War I, wondered what it might do with its new sleek, silent, torpedo-laden vessels. The ships had been battling German U-boats in the North Sea and the English Channel for four long years. In London the Admiralty... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3267357/when-british-sent-submarines-1920s-hong-kong-wipe-out-south-china-coast-pirates?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3267357/when-british-sent-submarines-1920s-hong-kong-wipe-out-south-china-coast-pirates?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Jun 2024 23:45:09 +0000 My grandmother on my mother’s side had seven children. Her husband died in his early forties and she raised the kids on her own. When my mum got married, she and my dad got a flat near my grandmother’s, in Mong Kok, on Fa Yuen Street, close to the flower market. I was born in 1986 and my younger sister arrived 18 months later. Every Saturday we went to my grandmother’s flat. My aunts and uncles played mahjong and my sister and I played with our many cousins. It was a close family life centred on... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3267537/i-opened-box-night-i-had-my-first-moment-got-vera-liu-selling-sex-toys?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3267537/i-opened-box-night-i-had-my-first-moment-got-vera-liu-selling-sex-toys?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 21 Jun 2024 23:15:08 +0000 A trip from Hong Kong to Chiang Mai using Chinese-built railways and a road shows what a boon China’s Belt and Road Initiative has been, and what’s missing in less developed Southeast Asia. Day 1: Hong Kong – Kunming (February 5, 2024) It is Monday morning, five days before the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, and my wife and I have just left our home in Hong Kong, destined for Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. We take the MTR together, but while Mimi heads straight for Hong Kong... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3266643/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-plus-rest-so-so-hong-kong-chiang-mai-journey?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3266643/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-plus-rest-so-so-hong-kong-chiang-mai-journey?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Jun 2024 23:45:09 +0000 In America’s Lost Chinese: The Rise and Fall of a Migrant Family Dream, author Hugo Wong tells the inspiring story of his ancestors, Chinese migrants rejected by the United States who went on to build a new community in Mexico. In this excerpt, we learn how this innovative diaspora came to dominate trade south of the US border: Every Saturday night, after receiving their pay, Mexican workers went to the nearest village to have a drink at local cantinas, where customers often leave carried out... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3266401/how-early-chinese-migrants-mexico-came-dominate-trade-south-us-border?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3266401/how-early-chinese-migrants-mexico-came-dominate-trade-south-us-border?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Jun 2024 10:15:09 +0000 I was born in Hong Kong in 1952, a dragon year, and grew up in To Kwa Wan, East Kowloon. My parents had six children – three boys and three girls – and I’m the fourth child. My father had a big shop with many stalls, selling wooden shoes, sweets and biscuits. He brought in eight pinball machines to earn some extra money, but it was illegal, and the government confiscated the machines and destroyed them on the street. My dad owed money for the machines and had to sell everything to pay back the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3266580/how-hong-kong-buffalo-whisperer-went-yelling-and-crazy-happy-tending-animals?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3266580/how-hong-kong-buffalo-whisperer-went-yelling-and-crazy-happy-tending-animals?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 14 Jun 2024 23:15:07 +0000