https://www.scmp.com/rss/16309/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Price’s Price by Chris Maden. Published by Mung Cha Cha Press Stanley Featherstonehaugh Price is a womaniser and a chancer who accidentally washes up in Hong Kong in the 1960s, and through the ensuing decades experiences the highs and lows the city has to offer. The anti-hero of author Chris Maden’s Price’s Price, Price is, in short, a character who will divide readers. Born into money in what is now Zimbabwe, he joins the army while waiting on his inheritance from his British father, ending up... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3146993/womanising-corruption-privilege-unusual-love-letter?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3146993/womanising-corruption-privilege-unusual-love-letter?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 31 Aug 2021 06:15:18 +0000 Afterparties: Stories by Anthony Veasna So, pub. Ecco Press When Anthony Veasna So died in December, aged just 28, he left behind a reputation as an author on the brink of stardom, a powerful voice for other Khmer youth growing up in America in the shadow of the collective tragedy of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations. Now, a collection of his short stories, Afterparties, has been published, helping his fiction to reach a larger audience. Many of the tales have already appeared in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3142379/inherited-trauma-killing-fields-khmer-americans?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3142379/inherited-trauma-killing-fields-khmer-americans?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 25 Jul 2021 11:45:10 +0000 The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins  PublicAffairs  3/5 stars In 1965, the Indonesian military killed as many as one million of their own country­men, destroying the third-largest communist party in the world and taking with it pretty much anyone seen as having left-wing tendencies (as well as hundreds of thousands who had nothing to do with anything). Not many people were killed in the streets or officially executed, but rather disappeared into the night. On the island of Bali, at least 5 per... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3090523/sukarno-suharto-and-us-backed-mass-murder-communists?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3090523/sukarno-suharto-and-us-backed-mass-murder-communists?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 28 Jun 2020 05:00:10 +0000 A smartly dressed Chinese man was spotted in a field in rural Iowa, in the United States, in autumn 2011. This was enough to raise suspicion in a community that was 97% white and the local police went to check it out. Thus began perhaps one of the stranger cases of industrial espionage in recent years, one that highlights the threat of industrial theft and the overblown atmosphere of fear and mistrust that exists between the United States and China over intellectual property and trade. The field... https://www.scmp.com/politics/scientist-and-spy-chinese-industrial-espionage-and-cost-paranoia-us-china-relations/article/3051106?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/politics/scientist-and-spy-chinese-industrial-espionage-and-cost-paranoia-us-china-relations/article/3051106?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 18 Feb 2020 12:03:15 +0000 The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage by Mara Hvistendahl Riverhead Books 4/5 stars A smartly dressed Chinese man was spotted in a field in rural Iowa, in the United States, in autumn 2011. This was enough to raise suspicion in a community that was 97 per cent white and the local police went to check it out. Thus began perhaps one of the stranger cases of industrial espionage in recent years, one that highlights the threat of industrial theft and the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3049188/scientist-and-spy-chinese-industrial-espionage-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3049188/scientist-and-spy-chinese-industrial-espionage-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Feb 2020 12:00:06 +0000 The Trouble with Taiwan: History, the United States and a Rising China by Kerry Brown and Kalley Wu Tzu-hui Zed Books 3/5 stars The Trouble with Taiwan is a provocative title for a book, but then a lot about Taiwan is provocative, depending on who you’re talking to. Tensions between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of China (as Taiwan is officially called) have not ceased since the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek fled to the island in 1949, after losing the civil war to... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3034538/trouble-taiwan-book-maps-out-why-world-should-care?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3034538/trouble-taiwan-book-maps-out-why-world-should-care?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Oct 2019 07:00:13 +0000 The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant Comrade Kim Jong-un by Anna Fifield, pub. Hachette. 4/5 stars North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un is an enigmatic figure for all that he is instantly recognisable, a young man who could easily usher the world into its next major conflict. Yet trying to gain an under­standing of who he is can be – to put it mildly – a challenge. Journalists, diplomats and world leaders have tried to unravel the man, searching for clues to his personality... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3015331/great-successor-kim-jong-un-biography-follows-north?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3015331/great-successor-kim-jong-un-biography-follows-north?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 20 Jun 2019 14:00:11 +0000 A Savage Dreamland: Journeys in Burma by David Eimer Bloomsbury 3.5/5 stars Myanmar was a little-visited country until a decade ago, struggling under a military dictatorship that had curtailed individual freedoms, stunted economic development and made the Southeast Asian nation an international pariah. Then, in 2010, the junta loosened its grip on power, allowing parliamentary elections for the first time in decades. Later that year, democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3012413/myanmars-beauty-and-troubles-laid-bare-savage?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3012413/myanmars-beauty-and-troubles-laid-bare-savage?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 30 May 2019 10:30:11 +0000 Home Remedies: Stories by Xuan Juliana Wang Hogarth Press 4/5 stars Tutu was a short, sickly child “with skin the colour of peeling eucalyptus bark” who spent his youth in a forgotten industrial city in China. Unhappy with his mediocrity, and the bleak years stretching out before him, a few days before his 18th birthday he reinvents himself as a Falun Gong grandmaster. “Tutu could be an ordinary boy. He could get a job at the local factory and be like one of those men who walk out of the doors... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3010420/home-remedies-stories-chinas-young-and-listless-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3010420/home-remedies-stories-chinas-young-and-listless-and?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 16 May 2019 13:00:09 +0000 Maoism: A Global History by Julia Lovell, pub. Bodley Head In the 1960s, Beijing’s Friendship Hotel, in the leafy western suburbs between the city and its universities, became a hub for drifting revolution­aries as China sought to position itself as the global headquarters of rebellion and insurgency. Rooms were filled with left-wing zealots, or those simply enjoying an all-expenses-paid trip to China. “There were melancholic Chilean bolero singers, Colombian actors, Venezuelan armchair... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2188861/maoism-global-history-how-china-exported-revolution?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2188861/maoism-global-history-how-china-exported-revolution?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 07 Mar 2019 22:06:58 +0000 Poacher: Confessions from the Abalone Underworld by Kimon de Greef and Shuhood Abader Kwela Abalone, a large marine snail and a mainstay of Cantonese cuisine and high-end Chinese banquets, is found on the coastlines of every continent except Antarctica. Yet, in recent years, South Africa has become the largest supplier of the dried abalone sold and eaten in Hong Kong. Between 2012 and 2015, a third of Hong Kong’s dried abalone imports came directly from the country, according to Poacher:... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2166808/poacher-journalist-kimon-de-greefs-study-illegal?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2166808/poacher-journalist-kimon-de-greefs-study-illegal?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 04 Oct 2018 10:30:40 +0000 City of Devils: A Shanghai Noir by Paul French Penguin Books In the uncertain days of Shanghai in the 1930s and early 40s, with Japanese forces getting ever closer and the future of the foreign enclave and its inhabitants in doubt, there was a great deal of money to be made in drink, drugs, gambling and other vices. It was a crazy time for the city and its residents, “like living on the rim of a volcano”, American journalist J.B. Powell wrote. Based on the true lives of some of the many... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2136985/sin-city-book-exposes-gritty-underbelly-1930s-shanghai?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2136985/sin-city-book-exposes-gritty-underbelly-1930s-shanghai?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 14 Mar 2018 10:45:00 +0000 Catching Thunder: The Story of the World’s Longest Sea Chase by Eskil Engdal and Kjetil Sæter Zed Books The longest sea chase in recent history started in late December 2014. It would last for 110 days and 16,000km. Few on board the two vessels involved could have expected the ordeal ahead of them, or the way the chase would end. Many questions remain over the impact of the hunt, and of efforts to rein in illegal poaching in the vast Antarctic waters. This is the story told in Catching Thunder,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2134108/story-sea-shepherds-epic-high-seas-hunt-poachers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2134108/story-sea-shepherds-epic-high-seas-hunt-poachers?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 21 Feb 2018 12:30:30 +0000 Myanmar’s Enemy Within by Francis Wade Zed Books When five decades of military rule came to an end in Myanmar in 2011, there was hope that an era of peace and prosperity would dawn. Instead, the country has been racked by internal discord and ethno-religious conflict that has pitted the majority Buddhist population against Muslim minorities. Communities that once lived side by side have come to view each other with suspicion and dread, with violence begetting more violence. At least 71 dead in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2108085/book-review-how-myanmar-squandered-its-promise-peace?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2108085/book-review-how-myanmar-squandered-its-promise-peace?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 24 Aug 2017 09:00:45 +0000 Ghosts of the Tsunami by Richard Lloyd Parry Jonathan Cape 4 Stars On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake hit Japan, setting off a tsunami that left 18,500 people dead. It was the single greatest loss of life in the country since the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki in the dying days of the second world war. The earthquake, the fourth most powerful in the history of seismology, knocked the Earth 10 inches off its axis and moved Japan four feet closer to America. The subsequent tsunami, with... https://www.scmp.com/culture/books/article/2105213/book-review-ghosts-tsunamis-heart-wrenching-look-japan-tragedy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/books/article/2105213/book-review-ghosts-tsunamis-heart-wrenching-look-japan-tragedy?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 03 Aug 2017 04:01:56 +0000 The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao by Ian Johnson Allen Lane The 20th century wrought havoc on religious and spiritual life in mainland China, especially during the Cultural Revolution. Temples were torn down, believers persecuted and priests, monks and nuns subjected to violence and forced to renounce their religious ways. It must have seemed as though all traditional religious practices would vanish from the country. Yet, since the late 1970s, religion has slowly been... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2087087/return-religion-china-death-mao-documented-new-book?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2087087/return-religion-china-death-mao-documented-new-book?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 12 Apr 2017 23:45:15 +0000 A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA by Joshua Kurlantzick Simon & Schuster America was never officially at war in Laos, but its bombing of the Southeast Asian country in the 1960s and 70s was so intense that it averaged one planeload of bombs dropping every eight minutes for a full decade. In 1969 alone, the United States dropped more bombs on Laos than it did on Japan during the entire second world war. Few outside of Laos knew then, or even know now,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2066808/history-laos-secret-war-and-way-it-transformed-cia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2066808/history-laos-secret-war-and-way-it-transformed-cia?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 01 Feb 2017 05:02:11 +0000 The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present by John Pomfret Henry Holt and Co Before Anson Burlingame arrived in Beijing in 1862 to become the first American minister assigned to the Chinese capital, the United States’ diplomatic presence in mainland China had consisted of six men working from a hotel room in Shanghai, without the Stars & Stripes or a trained interpreter in sight. Burlingame set up residence in a courtyard near the Forbidden City, the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2048270/book-review-china-us-bound-suspicion-and-hope?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/2048270/book-review-china-us-bound-suspicion-and-hope?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 23 Nov 2016 00:15:53 +0000 Walking along the dirt roads in the village of Breb, in the far north of Romania, past wooden houses with beautifully carved gates, hand-pump wells and yards alive with livestock, it is hard to work out exactly when you are. The county of Maramures, within which Breb is located, is considered one of the last pockets of traditional rural life left in Europe, and many describe it as a snapshot of the continent as it was two centuries ago - although things are gradually changing with the arrival of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel-leisure/article/1932273/travel-back-time-trip-romanian-rural-idyll?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel-leisure/article/1932273/travel-back-time-trip-romanian-rural-idyll?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 01 Apr 2016 13:00:30 +0000 Darjeeling:The Colourful History and Precarious Fate of the World's Greatest Tea Jeff Koehler   Bloomsbury Publishing    Darjeeling. For most of us, it's just a name - one of the many tea-producing regions of the world, albeit one that creates a higher-end variety that costs a little more in the supermarkets. Yet for those who truly savour the unique flavours produced by tea leaves, or have made premium tea an intricate part of their lives, it is much more than that: the "champagne of tea", as... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1786696/book-review-darjeeling-jeff-koehler-troubles-brewing-champagne-tea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1786696/book-review-darjeeling-jeff-koehler-troubles-brewing-champagne-tea?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 05 May 2015 22:30:15 +0000 The Book of Gold Leaves by Mirza Waheed Penguin At first glance, The Book of Gold Leaves seems a simple love story. But it is much more than that: author Mirza Waheed paints a vivid picture of Kashmir as a land of immense beauty but also of intense suffering and division in the novel. Waheed's second book - following his critically acclaimed debut The Collaborator, voted book of the year by the Telegraph, New Statesman and Financial Times in 2011 - is also set in the tumultuous 1990s... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1639774/second-kashmir-novel-looks-land-torn-apart-war?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1639774/second-kashmir-novel-looks-land-torn-apart-war?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Nov 2014 12:16:01 +0000 Napoleon the Great by Andrew Roberts Allen Lane Few people in history have achieved more in their lifetime than Napoleon Bonaparte, and it quickly becomes clear in this latest in a long line of biographies just how fitting the title "Napoleon the Great" is. The second son of a Corsican aristocrat who through military prowess and sheer force of will reshaped continental Europe in the early 1800s, Napoleon came to power just six years after arriving in France as a young military cadet. He won... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1628968/book-review-napoleon-great-andrew-roberts?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1628968/book-review-napoleon-great-andrew-roberts?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 Nov 2014 15:11:26 +0000 This Divided Island by Samanth Subramanian Penguin India 3 stars Kit Gillet "Gradually, in my head, the boundaries between these slices of time - between wartime and post-war Sri Lanka - melted away. The phrase 'post-war' lost its meaning," journalist Samanth Subramanian writes in This Divided Island. When it comes to the decades-long civil war in Sri Lanka - in which Tamil rebels fought to create an independent state in the north and east - the counter narratives can be truly exhausting.... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1595978/book-review-divided-island-samanth-subramanian?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1595978/book-review-divided-island-samanth-subramanian?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Sep 2014 03:07:03 +0000 Death Fugue by Sheng Keyi Giramondo Publishing 3 stars Kit Gillet Death Fugue, Sheng Keyi's second novel to be translated into English after Northern Girls, is, at its core, an absurdist take on the legacy of June 4, 1989, and the totalitarian nature of the Chinese government still in place today. At the heart of the novel lies Yuan Mengliu, a poet who gave up poetry to become a doctor in the aftermath of a Tiananmen Square-like protest movement that occurs in a fictitious country called... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1592311/book-review-death-fugue-sheng-keyi?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1592311/book-review-death-fugue-sheng-keyi?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 14 Sep 2014 05:28:34 +0000 The Dog: Stories by Jack Livings Farrar, Straus and Giroux Disregarding his own health, and barely able to visit his dying wife in hospital, Zhou Yuqing sacrifices everything in an attempt to finish Mao Zedong's crystal sarcophagus in time for the opening of his mausoleum in 10 months' time. It is a herculean task, but in late 1976, with the Communist Party the ultimate power in China, Zhou has little choice but to struggle against the seemingly impossible task demanded by his superiors,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1579141/book-review-dog-stories-jack-livings?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1579141/book-review-dog-stories-jack-livings?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Aug 2014 23:45:45 +0000 Thirty-One Nil: On the Road with Football's Outsiders - A World Cup Odyssey by James Montague Bloomsbury 4.5 stars Kit Gillet If you are looking for a timely antidote to the blanket coverage of lucratively paid footballers competing in the World Cup in Brazil starting next Thursday, it's time to grab a copy of Thirty-One Nil, a gripping tale of some of the many underdogs who dreamed, however briefly, of playing alongside the likes of Ronaldo and Messi. Author James Montague travelled the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1526572/book-review-thirty-one-nil-road-footballs-outsiders-world-cup?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1526572/book-review-thirty-one-nil-road-footballs-outsiders-world-cup?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 08 Jun 2014 07:45:00 +0000 Last month, the latest attempt at a Middle East peace agreement fell apart, with both Israeli and Palestinian officials blaming each other for the failure. It was another setback in a long-running saga of attempts to find a solution to the regularly flaring tension between the states of Palestine and Israel, a conflict that has been simmering for more than six decades. Across cities and towns in the West Bank - 5,640 sq km (five times the size of Hong Kong) of landlocked territory that makes up... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1517814/against-wall?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1517814/against-wall?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 May 2014 15:00:15 +0000 Evan Osnos, a staff writer at The New Yorker, recently left China after eight years covering the country, but not before writing a book on China's Age of Ambition , due to be released in early May. He spoke to Kit Gillet.   What are the main characteristics of the age of ambition in China? It's an age of collision between aspiration and authoritarianism. It's a period in which the Chinese, despite the enduring political constraints, have seized control of the course and objective of their... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1486849/complications-and-contradictions-china-time-great-change?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1486849/complications-and-contradictions-china-time-great-change?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 20 Apr 2014 04:35:57 +0000 Mr Selden's Map of China: The Spice Trade, a Lost Chart & the South China Sea by Timothy Brook Profile Books 3 stars Kit Gillet In 2009, scholars at Oxford University found themselves looking down at an ancient Chinese map that hadn't been seen for almost a century. The one-metre by two-metre watercolour, an exquisite depiction of the South China Sea and the lands around it, defied convention: it was clearly Chinese, since all of the markings on it were in Chinese characters, yet it... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1442570/book-review-mr-seldens-map-china-timothy-brook?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1442570/book-review-mr-seldens-map-china-timothy-brook?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 09 Mar 2014 08:15:45 +0000 Sitting in a cluttered yard behind a series of wooden shacks, chickens pecking in the dust all around, Meoun Naem waits to be given a second dose of drugs. He's sweating and the whites of his eyes have a yellow hue, a legacy of earlier bouts of malaria; Meoun Naem estimates that this is the 10th time he has contracted the disease. The 30-year-old has recently been diagnosed with Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest strain of malaria. He's weak and has been unable to work for several days. "It... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1431746/combat-zone-fight-against-malaria-cambodia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1431746/combat-zone-fight-against-malaria-cambodia?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Feb 2014 15:45:45 +0000 Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade by Adam Minter Bloomsbury 4 stars Kit Gillet By the 1970s, the United States was a veritable scrapyard, with rusting cars and abandoned farming and factory equipment scattered all over the country. But then the Chinese came, Adam Minter writes in Junkyard Planet, his tour de force journey through the global scrap trade. Charting the movement of scrap around the world, and the role the industry plays in shaping the planet, Minter goes... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1350744/book-review-junkyard-planet-adam-minter?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1350744/book-review-junkyard-planet-adam-minter?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 10 Nov 2013 09:17:19 +0000 It's almost midnight, 10 kilometres off the west coast of Thailand, and Thamarat Sachanyarat has been circling for hours, carefully watching the swirling patterns on his boat's sonar. Peering closely at the monitor with failing eyes, the 54-year-old sighs and pushes the throttle, moving his wooden fishing boat on to a different patch of sea. All around, the lights of dozens of other boats can be seen in the pitch-black night, each crew in pursuit of a resource that is fast shrinking in the face... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1332931/slight-catch-thailands-overfishing-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1332931/slight-catch-thailands-overfishing-crisis?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Oct 2013 21:00:00 +0000 The Explorer Gene by Tom Cheshire Short Books 3 stars Kit Gillet On January 23, 1960, Swiss explorer Jacques Piccard set down at the deepest depths of the ocean, 10,911 metres below the surface. Crammed into a glorified tin can built to withstand the crushing pressure of the water, he and a colleague achieved what he'd previously described as "the last great geographic conquest": to become the first men to reach the lowest depths possible on the planet. It was a feat that would not be... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1319041/book-review-explorer-gene-tom-cheshire?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1319041/book-review-explorer-gene-tom-cheshire?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 Sep 2013 16:00:00 +0000 For the past six years, Mitch Moxley has lived the life of a young expat journalist in Beijing. In that time he has appeared on a Chinese dating show and in a music video, written about his time posing as a fake Western businessman at the behest of a mainland company, and worked in the bowels of state media. He has also written for The Atlantic , Time , The New York Times and other international publications. His first book, Apologies to My Censor , charts this period of his life. He talks to... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1286249/candid-offbeat-account-expat-life-mainland?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1286249/candid-offbeat-account-expat-life-mainland?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Jul 2013 16:00:00 +0000 In the heart of bustling Bangkok, among the towering skyscrapers and modern five-star hotels, Hotel Muse has an old-world feel. Guests are greeted with refreshing fruit juices in the foyer of the 25-storey hotel as they wait to check in. Uniformed bellboys take luggage up to the rooms, along corridors decked out in rich velvet and decorated with images and memorabilia from 1920s Bangkok. The rooms are furnished with ornate mahogany cabinets, daybeds and cast-iron bathtubs. High above, the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1260889/hey-big-splendour-hotel-muse-bangkok?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1260889/hey-big-splendour-hotel-muse-bangkok?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 19 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 For a Song and a Hundred Songs by Liao Yiwu (translated by Huang Wenguang) New Harvest In 2011 Chinese author, poet and dissident Liao Yiwu slipped across a small border crossing into northern Vietnam, fleeing a country that had long repressed and imprisoned him for his protest writing. At the time his latest manuscript, a memoir of the four years he spent behind bars - from 1990 to 1994 - had just been smuggled out of China. The book recounts the awakening of Liao's need to speak out, and the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1260716/book-review-song-and-hundred-songs-liao-yiwu?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1260716/book-review-song-and-hundred-songs-liao-yiwu?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Jun 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Napalm: An American Biography by Robert Neer Belknap Press It's one of the most notorious weapons of the 20th century, yet beyond its role in the Vietnam war, napalm is little known - both in its origins and nature, and in its use in warzones before and since that decade-long conflict. In Napalm, Robert Neer has created the first comprehensive history of napalm, meticulously charting the early years when the weapon - developed by scientists at a secret war research laboratory at Harvard - was... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1223783/book-review-napalm-robert-neer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1223783/book-review-napalm-robert-neer?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The 10-minute ride on a small ferry to Bangkok Tree House across the Chao Phraya River to Bang Krachao, a small peninsula known as Bangkok's "green lung", seems to take you into another world. Compared with the lights shining brightly from the city centre to the north, a few lights flicker in the darkness on the far shore. Bangkok Tree House is an 11-room boutique eco-hotel built on stilts and hidden among the mangroves, palm trees and waters of an island that few know of. "I bet 90 per cent of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1218499/trunk-call?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1218499/trunk-call?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000 The Last Quarter of the Moon by Chi Zijian (translated by Bruce Humes) Harvill Secker Alone, save for her simple-minded grandson, the 90-year-old widow of one of the last chieftains of the Evenki reindeer herders contemplates her life, and the dying ways of her people. Recounting the long years of her childhood and adult life as one of the nomadic reindeer herders of Inner Mongolia, the unnamed woman paints a vivid picture of the beauty and suffering that comes with a life so reliant on the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1156175/book-review-last-quarter-moon-chi-zijian?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1156175/book-review-last-quarter-moon-chi-zijian?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000 In a small lot hidden among the sprawl of urban Manila, 59-year-old Roque Reyes checks the condition of his fighting cocks. Dressed in a pair of white shorts and a plain white T-shirt, the father of four walks carefully around the basic, handmade cages, occasionally opening a door and looking inside at birds he is training to be killers. "I've been doing this for 15 years," he says. "But it is just a hobby; some people do this as a career." Down a cluttered side road in a poor neighbourhood of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1123658/wing-and-prayer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1123658/wing-and-prayer?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 Two Billion Eyes: The Story of China Central Television by Ying Zhu New Press In the most populous country on the planet, a nation where information is heavily controlled, there is perhaps nothing more powerful (or scary) than a state-controlled television network with a near-monopoly on the airwaves and the spread of news and discourse. Step forward CCTV. According to Ying Zhu, roughly two-thirds of all television hours in China are spent watching CCTV, with the network owning more than a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1083937/book-review-two-billion-eyes-story-china-central-television?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1083937/book-review-two-billion-eyes-story-china-central-television?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 Nov 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Behind the Red Door: Sex in China by Richard Burger Earnshaw Books China Behind the Red Door: Sex in China by Richard Burger Earnshaw Books 3.5 stars Kit Gillet Kit Gillet Richard Burger suggests a sexual reawakening has long been under way on the mainland, with a rapidly altering sexual landscape filled with unmarried sexual partners, flourishing sex shops, mistresses and an increasingly wifeless generation of young men. Burger, a former contributor to The Baltimore Sun and one of the first... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1049423/huge-changes-mainlands-sexual-attitudes?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/books/article/1049423/huge-changes-mainlands-sexual-attitudes?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Few visitors to Mongolia arrive expecting a luxurious time. Most come itching for an adventure out in the vast plains where living in a ger - the basic felt tents of the nomadic herders also known as a yurt - is the norm. When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Mongolia earlier this year to attend a forum, her staff found the only hotel they thought was suitable: a former riverside resort used by high-ranking Soviet army officers in the 1960s and '70s. The Terelj Hotel is located in... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel/article/1048692/review-terelj-hotel?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel/article/1048692/review-terelj-hotel?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000 For Mike Scribner, a suntanned and fast-talking American, the small landscaping business he has back home is simply a way to fund the four-month kitesurfing trips he takes to Vietnam every year. For the past six years the 49-year-old has left the US as the cold weather kicks in and set up home in Mui Ne, a small Vietnamese beachside village. A decade ago Mui Ne was just a simple fishing village, but it is quickly becoming the Asian capital of one of the fastest-growing sports in the world:... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel/article/1041583/kitesurfing-takes-mui-ne-vietnam?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel/article/1041583/kitesurfing-takes-mui-ne-vietnam?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:00:00 +0000 What is it? A cluster of sleek tented structures perched high on an isolated plateau two hour's drive from the Yunnan province tourist town of Lijiang. Opened this year, the resort is miles from anywhere, in the heart of the Three Parallel Rivers National Park, a Unesco World Heritage site for biodiversity. Tents are equipped with all the mod cons (showers, air conditioners, espresso makers, to name a few) and the resort has an alfresco hot tub with perhaps the best view in the region - looking... https://www.scmp.com/article/1006122/kingsway-resort-yunnan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1006122/kingsway-resort-yunnan?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Jul 2012 16:00:00 +0000 In a second-floor office in the archi-tecture department of the mainland's most prestigious university, Professor Xu Weiguo sits contemplating the changes that have occurred since he enrolled here, in the first year that classes were resumed following the Cultural Revolution. 'Architecture and design stopped from 1966 to 1978,' explains the head of Tsinghua University's School of Architecture. 'The first professors back were educated in the UK, the USA and Russia. They brought knowledge of... https://www.scmp.com/article/1003509/shaky-foundations?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1003509/shaky-foundations?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Jun 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Effortlessly stylish in a simple black shirt and jeans, Ma Yansong sits cradling a cup of tea with a pack of flu medicine nearby. He has just returned to his office, in the heart of a complex of thin ancient alleyways in Beijing, from a work trip to France, and looks tired; like someone who simply doesn't have enough hours in the day to accomplish all the things he would like to. The 36-year-old, Yale University-educated architect is increasingly being seen as a rising star. Potentially, he is... https://www.scmp.com/article/1003508/kind-madness?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/1003508/kind-madness?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Jun 2012 16:00:00 +0000 Sitting in a plush meeting room in the west of Beijing, Yin Liming, president of China Great Wall Industry Corp, the main supplier of Chinese launch services, satellites and other space products to the international market, expounds on the virtues and successes of his company and their aims for the next five years. China had just successfully launched its second lunar probe, the Chang'e-2, which is orbiting the moon, and only days later the space community celebrated the launch of the sixth... https://www.scmp.com/article/730473/reliability-issues-mar-satellite-industry?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/730473/reliability-issues-mar-satellite-industry?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 14 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000 High-ranking government ministers from across Asia gathered in Beijing over the weekend - excluding Western government involvement - to discuss issues of child protection and the promotion of child rights. In what was the first meeting of its kind, the gathering organised by Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, included 180 government representatives from 28 Asian and Pacific nations to share best practices and learn from other nations' experiences at a three-day conference which ended... https://www.scmp.com/article/729795/unicef-meeting-first-its-kind?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/729795/unicef-meeting-first-its-kind?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 07 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000 Some officials are believed to be classifying their first-born children as disabled to get around the one-child policy, mainland media reported. A list released recently by the population and family planning commission in Lengshuijiang, Henan province, showed that the fathers of nine of the 23 children registered as disabled in the small city worked for the local government. The list was obtained by the Chongqing Evening News on Wednesday. Mainland families may have a second child if their... https://www.scmp.com/article/729507/disabled-register-used-defy-one-child-policy?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/729507/disabled-register-used-defy-one-child-policy?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 04 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000