Long Reads

How do people celebrate Christmas around the world?

Christmas is a time of goodwill to all men and their often bizarre traditions, whether it’s a gift-defecating log or a festive fist-fight. We hitch a ride on the big man’s sleigh to see for ourselves.

24 Dec 2020 - 10:59AM
How Sun Yat-sen shaped Penang’s capital, George Town

Little was publicly known about Sun Yat-sen’s time in Penang until Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad’s 2001 visit to an exhibition dedicated to the Chinese revolutionary in George Town, where his influence can still be felt.

21 Dec 2020 - 8:49AM
Elon Musk vs Jeff Bezos: who will win the modern space race?

Two of the world’s richest men are engaged in a race to be the first to launch satellite internet, wielding their billionaire boys toys in a rivalry straight out of the sci-fi flicks that both adore.

19 Dec 2020 - 9:02PM
How Hong Kong food bank coped with tripling of demand in 2020

Gabrielle Kirstein, the founder of Feeding Hong Kong, talks about how helping her father with his volunteer work in a Manchester hostel inspired her to set up the food charity

22 Dec 2020 - 9:20AM
How Wei Wei became Hong Kong Ballet’s principal dancer

After his mother noticed his natural sense of rhythm, Wei Wei joined Shenyang Conservatory of Music, in China, before joining Hong Kong Ballet in 2003, where he met his wife and continues to dance.

13 Dec 2020 - 2:32PM
‘I was a very bad lawyer’ but ‘banking suited me’: Yeone Fok

Having attended Wellesley, Cambridge, Oxford and Harvard, the founder of ethical crowdfunding platform SparkRaise says, ‘I basically kept studying because I didn’t want to work’.

6 Dec 2020 - 2:57PM
How rich millennials are shaking up China’s art market

Michael Xufu Huang, 26, is but one of the many young collectors opening their own museums and galleries, in what seems to be a fundamental shift in China’s cultural world.

8 Dec 2020 - 10:28AM
Defender of orangutans who fought Indonesian dam paid with his life

Golfrid Siregar had taken on the Chinese-funded hydroelectric power plant being built deep in the Sumatran rainforest, a project environmentalists claim threatens the survival of the unique Tapanuli orangutan.

24 Dec 2020 - 12:49PM
Ellen Pau on embracing her identity as an artist, woman, lesbian

The Hong Kong visual artist talks about having felt close to death since childhood, coming out as a creative and eschewing relationships to remain creative

1 Dec 2020 - 3:15PM
‘Not in my backyard’: China’s controversial new embassy in London

Beijing’s 2018 purchase of the Royal Mint Court was welcomed, but the intervening years have seen the British view of China sour and residents and councillors have vowed to make their disapproval known.

24 Dec 2020 - 12:50PM
Why Hong Kong’s stand-up comedy scene is no laughing matter

A South China Morning Post editor gets lessons from some of Hong Kong’s top stand-ups before taking to the stage and finds that making people laugh for a living is a tough gig.

3 Dec 2020 - 11:55AM
‘Father of Hong Kong design’ created HSBC logo, Standard Chartered banknotes

Austria-born Henry Steiner, who is known as the ‘father of Hong Kong design’, recalls the 1967 riots, bringing graphic design to the city and creating HSBC’s red-and-white hexagon.

22 Nov 2020 - 3:05PM
The brutal institutions ‘curing’ China’s LGBT, nonconformist youth

A public dispute between a 17-year-old transgender woman and her family has shone a spotlight on the existence of ‘schools’ that exist to ‘regulate’ the behaviour of the country’s teenagers.

9 Dec 2020 - 3:01PM
How China’s vast and aggressive fishing fleet is kept afloat

China is said to be the world’s worst offender when it comes to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, a position it could not maintain without hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies handed to it by Beijing.

21 Nov 2020 - 9:51AM
Sylvia Chang on life, love and the limits of language

The Taiwanese actor and director reflects on the influence of childhood as she looks back on her 50 years in front of and behind the camera.

15 Nov 2020 - 12:26PM
The former fashion executive working to end hunger in Bali

Robert Epstone planned for an idyllic retirement on Bali. Instead, he is working to find sustainable solutions to ending poverty on the island with his charity Yayasan Solemen Indonesia.

14 Nov 2020 - 4:11PM
Cosmic colonialism: the race to mine space

An extraterrestrial gold rush? As companies eye celestial riches, we could all be losers if countries fail to reach a consensus on space mining.

14 Nov 2020 - 7:21AM
The man helping Hong Kong’s special needs adults lead full lives

David Nesbitt on how his eponymous centre started the Nest chain of bakery and coffee shop social enterprises.

9 Nov 2020 - 8:37AM
In China, sports and politics are inseparable

After a very public fallout with the NBA, it has become clear that China uses sports to send a political message, meaning the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is shaping up to be the most controversial Games in recent times.

12 Nov 2020 - 2:21PM