https://www.scmp.com/rss/13408/feed Helen Leavey has been a journalist for more than two decades and worked for the BBC in Taiwan and London. She also lived in Beijing for many years, where she endeavoured to learn Mandarin, brought up her children and worked in human rights. Originally from the south of England, Helen now lives in the northern county of Yorkshire where she's written books, made short films and created the podcast Voices from Herriot Country. Available on iTunes and SoundCloud. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Tanya Marwaha was barely a teenager when she first began struggling with her mental health, affected by one bereavement after another over a six-year period, through accidents as well as natural causes. That time is still so raw that she struggles to talk about her anguish. Growing up in Britain in an ethnic Indian family did not seem to help, as mental health issues are often pushed under the carpet in Indian culture for fear of stigma. When Tanya, now 20, also developed chronic physical... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3162696/british-indian-student-launches-mental-health-website-fight-stigma?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3162696/british-indian-student-launches-mental-health-website-fight-stigma?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Jan 2022 12:00:27 +0000 Deep in the Yorkshire Wolds, in northern England, Robert E. Fuller, like most of us have been for the past year, is glued to a screen. But not to the latest Netflix series or a pirated feed of Oprah Winfrey’s Harry and Meghan interview. He is watching a pair of wild tawny owls, Luna and Bomber, flying back and forth from the woods to their nest, caring for their two precious eggs, laid a few weeks earlier. Neither owlet from the two eggs will survive, perhaps because they come early and cannot... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3127962/how-british-wildlife-became-live-stream?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3127962/how-british-wildlife-became-live-stream?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 04 Apr 2021 06:45:07 +0000 Twenty-year-old Wang Chenghan watched the swarm of people scrabble, children and adults both, falling over each other to wave wildly into the air above. A few twirled their shirts above their heads, others jumped for joy and embraced, ignoring the patrol­ling Japanese guards around them. Wang, or Eddie as he was affectionately known, felt a jolt of tenderness pulsate through his fear as he looked down on the silent shouts from the plane. Two-and-a-half hours earlier, he had boarded the American... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3044435/remembering-seven-heroes-who-liberated-japanese?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3044435/remembering-seven-heroes-who-liberated-japanese?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Jan 2020 22:00:10 +0000 About 15km from the spires of the university city of Oxford, Southmoor is a pretty village, with listed buildings and a couple of pubs; just the kind of place you would expect to stumble across while exploring England’s leafy country lanes. A birthday celebration at the village hall is a common occurrence. Not so commonplace was the birthday party held in the hall one Saturday in March for Joe Cotterill. The trimmings included a cake in the shape of “100”, a card from Britain’s Queen Elizabeth... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2090787/eric-liddells-former-roommate-china-internment?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2090787/eric-liddells-former-roommate-china-internment?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 Apr 2017 05:15:30 +0000 The view from our motel window in New Zealand is gorgeous. Just 30 metres from where I am writing this lies the Bay of Plenty, with small boats gently bobbing on its clear waters. Earlier today, we went kayaking in the bay and were startled by a large flying fish that jumped out of the sea right in front of us. Despite this beautiful scene, just an hour's drive from Auckland, I find myself increasingly distracted by thoughts of what awaits us back home in Britain. When my family and I left... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1089169/new-beginning-beckons-home-approaches?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1089169/new-beginning-beckons-home-approaches?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 As our camper van trundled across the arid landscape of Australia's Northern Territory, the relentless sun continued to beat down. It was time for an ice cream, so we pulled off the main road and headed into the sleepy town of Pine Creek. We found refreshment at a shop called Ah Toy's Store - but also something more. Behind the counter stood the owner, Edward Ah Toy, whose grandfather was born in a village near Hong Kong and emigrated to Australia more than a century ago. After living in Beijing... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1074644/trail-australias-melting-pot-pioneers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1074644/trail-australias-melting-pot-pioneers?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 On our way to Noosa, a beach resort on Australia's east coast, we came across a place called Murdering Creek and a road with a similar name. They seemed out of place in what is now a pleasant town crammed with boutique hotels, designer clothes shops and a government-protected nature reserve. But Noosa, like many places in Australia, has a dark side to its history. When my family and I lived in Beijing - before setting off on a five-month tour of Bali, Australia and New Zealand - we learned about... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel/article/1059590/field-trip-dark-lessons-colonial-past?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel/article/1059590/field-trip-dark-lessons-colonial-past?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Oct 2012 16:00:00 +0000 It all seemed so simple in theory: travel to some of the most beautiful parts of the world and home-school the children along the way. A few hours teaching in the morning could be followed by whole days of outdoor enjoyment. What could be nicer? We had never done anything like it before, but how hard could it be to teach just two children - not a class of 30 screaming kids - the basics of maths and English? And like all doting parents we believed that our children were dedicated... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1049488/field-trip-reading-and-rules-road?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-education/article/1049488/field-trip-reading-and-rules-road?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000 We've seen scores of them during our few weeks in Australia. They descend on campsites and cafes, sitting around in groups chatting and drinking alcohol or coffee. They often wear the same kind of clothes and have similar hairstyles. No, I'm not describing dreadlocked backpackers. I'm talking about the grey nomads, retired Australians who are out in force Down Under, perhaps replacing the backpacker as the quintessential traveller. Since we left Beijing in July, my children Sam, eight, and... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel/article/1036825/australias-grey-haired-road-warriors?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel/article/1036825/australias-grey-haired-road-warriors?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Have you ever been eyeball to eyeball with a humpback whale? I have. I even dreamed about it later that night. It was such a unique experience. All the more amazing for the fact that not so long ago, this magnificent mammal was slaughtered in these same seas. We had spent an hour scurrying about the five-storey whale watching boat from side to side and up and down to get a better view of several humpback whales spouting, breaching and "tail slapping", coming closer and closer to us as they did... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel/article/1027023/now-heres-something-spout-about?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel/article/1027023/now-heres-something-spout-about?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Air and food pollution were reasons to flee Beijing after living there for seven years. We also worried about the children being hit by a car as the volume of traffic increased. In Australia we're still worrying, but about very different things. We've swapped man-made issues for the Mother Nature factor, fretting about crocodiles, sharks and even huge flightless birds called cassowaries, which can be taller than us and run faster. A tourist was badly injured recently after being attacked by... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1017001/fun-fauna-down-under?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/1017001/fun-fauna-down-under?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Aug 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Learning Putonghua has never been so popular. In 2004, almost 111,000 students from 178 countries enrolled at Chinese universities, according to Xinhua, which said the figure was a 43 per cent increase on the previous year. More than 30 million people were studying Putonghua abroad. Choosing where to study can be difficult. A search on the internet in Britain did not leave me any the wiser as to where to go, so I chose a place I had already heard of from a previous visit to the mainland and... https://www.scmp.com/article/560815/plenty-opportunities-study-putonghua-mainland?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/560815/plenty-opportunities-study-putonghua-mainland?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 18 Aug 2006 16:00:00 +0000 CRAWLING AROUND ON the floor pretending to be a panda then slithering like a snake are not things I do very often. But there I was on a Monday morning doing just that, with 17 adults watching me, laughing. This was a Putonghua class where, although there is still plenty of rote learning, there's also scope for different teaching techniques and much merriment. On this particular occasion, I was performing various Chinese words that my classmates had to guess correctly. Role-play is... https://www.scmp.com/article/560813/word-play?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/560813/word-play?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 18 Aug 2006 16:00:00 +0000 Sean Wall lives in Beijing and is the deputy managing director of DHL-Sinotrans. His son Brendon, 10, attends the Western Academy of Beijing (WAB), chosen because it is close to home. Mr Wall, whose firm pays for his son's schooling, thinks school fees in the mainland are among the highest in Asia. Fees in Beijing and Shanghai, for instance, can run as high as 180,000 yuan a year at secondary level. 'We used to live in Indonesia, and the value for money there compared with China was much... https://www.scmp.com/article/553003/choose-carefully-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/553003/choose-carefully-china?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 Jun 2006 16:00:00 +0000 HUNAN-BORN LI XIN is 24 years old and a long way from home. Her parents, a tax office clerk and retired accountant, are paying her living expenses while she takes an 18-month master's course in international business at Gothenburg University, Sweden, studying in English. Ms Li admits to getting lonely sometimes, but she is far from being the only Chinese student in Scandinavia. There are tens of thousands of them on university campuses all over Europe. Chinese students have been venturing... https://www.scmp.com/article/478860/all-aboard-euro-express?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/478860/all-aboard-euro-express?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 19 Nov 2004 16:00:00 +0000