This week in PostMag: Hong Kong’s bamboo scaffolding and a Bali bone healer

As I read our cover feature this week, I started thinking about the overlap between a bamboo scaffolding master’s craft and my own as the editor of a magazine. Hear me out for a second. They’re both tactile endeavours, requiring craftsmanship and an attention to the little things. Each of us takes building blocks – words and images or poles and ties – to construct something greater than the sum of its parts. And most of all, both have an unmistakable human touch. “There’s always a human hand behind it,” says a bamboo scaffolding master in Christopher DeWolf’s piece. It’s a line that’s stuck with me.

Elsewhere in our features, Winnie Chung chats with Singaporean novelist Jemimah Wei, whose debut The Original Daughter is already making waves internationally. The up-and-coming author shows a side of Singapore apart from the glitz and glam the city state is known for, focusing on the “claustrophobic intimacy of public-housing life”. Wei toiled over the novel for more than 10 years, estimating that she wrote well over a million words. Quite the endeavour indeed.

Back in Venice, Zhaoyin Feng meets the Chinese migrants now staffing many of the city’s coffee bars. It’s a story that dives into the question of authenticity and cultural identity, played out through espresso pulls and Aperol spritzes. My favourite bit? Learning that one young barista honed her coffee-making skills via YouTube and Douyin, a thoroughly modern-day twist.

Then we leave the lagoon for the Swiss Alps. In Seewis im Prättigau, Victoria Burrows joins villagers guiding flower-crowned cows down from the high pastures at summer’s end. There are bells and brass bands and half the town lining the streets. I’m particularly intrigued by the ancillary events. I might not qualify for the international beard competition but I’d happily judge alpine cheeses.

And finally, in Bali, Ian Lloyd Neubauer meets Mangku Sudarsana, a traditional healer known for bone setting. One firm knee, a twist and years of pain disappear in seconds. Feeling like a man reborn, Neubauer uses his new-found energy to explore the island’s less-trodden paths, finding there’s still plenty to discover beyond traffic-choked Seminyak.