https://www.scmp.com/rss/286934/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com The southern Chinese city of Yangshuo has transformed in recent years. Thanks to additional high-speed transport links opening up the scenic town, an influx of local and foreign tourists are flocking to the once-peaceful village for a glimpse of their iconic jade-colored karst peaks. The bullet train from Shenzhen, for example, cut a 13-hour overnight journey to just a three-hour ride. And while its surreal scenery remains some of the most serene and unspoiled in China, it’s Yangshuo's river... https://www.scmp.com/travel/yangshuo-looks-chinese-painting-and-you-can-get-there-bullet-train/article/2153079?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/travel/yangshuo-looks-chinese-painting-and-you-can-get-there-bullet-train/article/2153079?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 29 Jun 2018 08:00:30 +0000 As it turns out, Hong Kong has Mao Zedong to thank for those little green pieces of plas­tic we are obliged to carry on our person: identity cards. Smart Hong Kong ID cards to be replaced from 2018 to 2022 In 1949, the British colony was preparing for chaos and an influx of refugees, as civil war raged in China. On October 1, Mao established the People’s Republic of China. Attorney general J.B. Griffin moved ear­lier that summer for Hong Kong to register all per­sons in the colony and issue them... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/2012136/why-hong-kong-has-mao-thanks-id-cards?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/2012136/why-hong-kong-has-mao-thanks-id-cards?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 01 Sep 2016 22:00:45 +0000 As cures for writer's block go, this is a good one. In July, Authors At Large - a network for fiction and non-fiction writers - will host its inaugural writing retreat, on the private Indonesian island of Telunas. About 18 writers will assemble for five days of literary discussion, manuscript workshops and, of course, writing. While mornings will be left free for the writers to relax and pen their masterpieces, bringing family members or other loved ones along is strictly forbidden. "This is not... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/1888970/hong-kong-author-leads-writing-retreat-private?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/1888970/hong-kong-author-leads-writing-retreat-private?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Dec 2015 15:00:00 +0000 I recently read about a therapy that could revolutionise cancer treatment. Scientists now believe it is possible to harness our own immune systems to fight cancer, potentially making traumatic treatments such as chemotherapy redundant. It's mind-bogglingly futuristic, fantastic stuff. Why is it we are so ahead on some issues, and so archaic on others? Take receipts, for example. At a time when most governments - even that of China - admit we need to battle climate change, shops, bars and... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1865174/why-are-hong-kong-businesses-still-giving-us-paper-receipts?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1865174/why-are-hong-kong-businesses-still-giving-us-paper-receipts?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Oct 2015 00:35:31 +0000 "A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality." That John Lennon quote is the inspiration behind English-language reality television show Dream On, which aims to help Hong Kong residents in underprivileged communities achieve their goals. Nick Daryanani, a psychology graduate, and former Deloitte employee Natalie Chan quit their jobs to host and produce the show. "We've both been told in the past that our dreams are ridiculous," says Daryanani, "and for... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1858984/reality-tv-show-dream-aims-empower-hong-kongs-poor?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1858984/reality-tv-show-dream-aims-empower-hong-kongs-poor?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Sep 2015 00:15:00 +0000 Over the past five years, as any local cab driver will tell you, Yangshuo has been transformed. Once a hippie haven nestled between the jade-coloured karst peaks of Guangxi, it's now a neon hotspot, jammed with more Chinese tourists than Western backpackers. With great popularity has come great transport links: last year a high-speed train to Guilin launched from Shenzhen North, cutting a 13-hour overnight journey to a 3½-hour ride. Just beyond the town, the surreal scenery remains some of the... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/1852064/adventure-excitement-and-relaxation-amid-unspoilt-yangshuo?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/1852064/adventure-excitement-and-relaxation-amid-unspoilt-yangshuo?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 24 Aug 2015 10:00:30 +0000 Burj Al Arab - isn't that the world's only seven-star hotel? By reputation, only. The Jumeirah Group, which owns the property, claims to have never used the term "seven stars"; it was coined by a British journalist at the hotel's opening, and conveniently stuck. Here's what "seven stars" will get you: 15,000 staff, including a 70-strong lobby team of hostesses who must be five feet, eight inches tall, and doormen, who are at least six foot one and, not accidentally, handsome. The hotel has 200... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1846977/fit-king-dubais-seven-star-burj-al-arab-hotel?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1846977/fit-king-dubais-seven-star-burj-al-arab-hotel?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 08 Aug 2015 14:45:30 +0000 PUSHING THE BORDERLINE I was born in Hyesan but moved around a lot inside North Korea growing up, because of my father's job (in the military). Hyesan people have money, the most after those in Pyongyang, because it's near the border with China. Illegal smuggling businesses and Chinese trading companies operate there, so people can access outside products. (From the mid- 1990s) we had the famine in North Korea. In Hyesan people thought it had started in 97 or 98. In North Korea we can't share... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1842998/north-korean-hyeonseo-lee-accidental-defector?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1842998/north-korean-hyeonseo-lee-accidental-defector?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 23 Jul 2015 05:00:30 +0000 Do you ever wonder what your search history says about you? "Hypochondriac" is a word that would surely crop up if my late-night whisperings into Google's ear were to be psychoanalysed. Par exemple: on a recent long-haul flight to London, the bridge of my nose began to swell. Before I'd reclaimed my baggage, airport Wi-fi had enabled me to identify the cause: a nose infection. Four hours in a National Health Service walk-in centre later, a doctor issued me with some cream. "Um, isn't it an... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1835029/why-dr-google-aint-all-when-it-comes-diagnosis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1835029/why-dr-google-aint-all-when-it-comes-diagnosis?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Jul 2015 10:00:15 +0000 Xinjiang is China's largest administrative region. Bustling bazaars, the highest paved international highway in the world (the Karakoram) and the mainland's only wild camel reserve make this desert land prime wanderlust territory. And yet so few people do visit China's "north-western restive region". Just 30 pages of the Lonely Planet's China volume are dedicated to it, while the Odyssey guide focuses on the region's (fascinating) ancient Silk Road history. Enter Josh Summers. The Texan, who has... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1830946/xinjiang-fan-josh-summers-ultimate-travel-guide-region?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1830946/xinjiang-fan-josh-summers-ultimate-travel-guide-region?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Jul 2015 13:12:33 +0000 NO MORE NORMAL I was born in Mogadishu in 1968 and my father is an optologist, who trained in Italy. Back then Somalia was a military dictatorship under Mohamed Siad Barre. We had free health care and schooling but not much freedom of speech. Compared to the chaos you have now, however, Somalia was a nice place to live. A "normal" African country. Compared to the chaos you have now, Somalia was a nice place to live When I finished high school, I went to Delhi, in India, to study insurance. When... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1826353/meet-first-somali-chinese-home-return-permit?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1826353/meet-first-somali-chinese-home-return-permit?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 26 Jun 2015 03:00:00 +0000 I recently watched Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing, the film adapted from Han Suyin's semi-autobiographical novel. Unusually for a 1955 Hollywood production, the crew spent two weeks filming in Hong Kong. Seeing the colonial buildings - especially the now-demolished Foreign Correspondents' Club on Conduit Road - Queen's Road Central and Aberdeen harbour captured on screen was, to me, more romantic than the plot. Jennifer Jones is cast as widowed Eurasian Dr Han Suyin, who falls for married... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1820187/emma-stone-asian-role-highlights-racial-miscasting-hollywood?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1820187/emma-stone-asian-role-highlights-racial-miscasting-hollywood?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Jun 2015 11:08:29 +0000 The vibe: the Sheung Wan end of Hollywood Road is awash with restaurants but a desert for bars. So when one opened a tipsy stumble down the hill from 208 Duecento Otto, it was cause for celebration. Until I saw its name: Bar Vom. But a recent visit revealed it to be actually called Vona (sack the sign maker) — think bar Tonic transplanted from Wyndham Street into hipsterville. The dark lighting and glowing purple accents feel incongruous as you gaze out of the open shopfront windows to the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48-hours/article/1814775/bar-review-vona-chocolate-martinis-sheung-wan-hipsters?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48-hours/article/1814775/bar-review-vona-chocolate-martinis-sheung-wan-hipsters?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 03 Jun 2015 15:30:30 +0000 We breathe it regularly in Hong Kong, and can often see it shrouding our skyscrapers, but what does smog taste like? That is the question being posed on Saturday at the Ideas City Festival, at the New Museum, in New York, where free synthesised-smog meringues will be dished out. "Some people react to them with disgust but, when we explain, 'You are breathing the air [these are made with] every day,' most people are willing to give it a try," says Zack Denfeld, co-founder of the Centre for... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1811130/smog-meringue-anyone-find-out-what-pollution-tastes?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1811130/smog-meringue-anyone-find-out-what-pollution-tastes?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 29 May 2015 03:45:30 +0000 In 1963, five days after Singapore had merged with Malaya in what would become a fling of a union, the city went to the polls. In the South Islands constituency, which no longer exists, 5,048 voters, mostly fishermen and tribesmen, played their part in shaping the future of what would, two years later, be an independent nation. A nation that, in the years that followed, would devastate, and then forget, their rural existence.  "That generation had about seven to eight children per family, so I'm... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1805255/forgotten-singapore-evicted-islanders-grieve-lost-paradise?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1805255/forgotten-singapore-evicted-islanders-grieve-lost-paradise?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 May 2015 14:30:45 +0000 The vibe: when the owner of Safe gave 300 bottles of rare single-malt whisky from his collection to this establishment, he wanted to make sure it was secure (there's a 1946 bottle of Macallan in there, after all). So the bar's ostentatious giant steel safe exterior was born. Luckily for us, it's easy to crack the code to enter (you just press a button and the metal door slides open). Inside, classy muzak tinkles while fine whiskies wallpaper the surroundings; the champagnes, however, are kept... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48-hours/article/1803098/bar-review-safe-bubbles-malt-rare-whiskies-and-champagne?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48-hours/article/1803098/bar-review-safe-bubbles-malt-rare-whiskies-and-champagne?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 20 May 2015 15:00:45 +0000 "Why would anyone leave Hong Kong?" wrote a friend on Facebook recently, beside a picture of a beautiful sunset at Repulse Bay. "Why does everyone leave Hong Kong?" might have been a more pertinent question. Since moving to this land of neon signs and HK$20 noodles three years ago, my friendship circle has changed countless times, as expatriates routinely wrap up their two-year-ish flings with the city. The nine months of sunshine; efficient transport; delicious dim sum; beaches; brunches; and a... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1781576/are-you-true-hongkonger-it-depends-who-you-ask?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1781576/are-you-true-hongkonger-it-depends-who-you-ask?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 02 May 2015 14:30:15 +0000 On a muggy Wednesday night last month, a group of 20 people feasted on dapanji, a Uygur chicken stew, at Ba Yi, a Xinjiang restaurant in Sai Ying Pun. Before the group ate, Peter Gao Xing - president of the Hong Kong Association of Xinjiang Elites - gave a speech about his birthplace; a land, he said, famous for its fruit and sunshine, as well as having the largest wind-power plant in Asia. Comprised half of expats, half of locals (a term which, that night, included mainlanders), it was the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1761628/we-club-promotes-cross-cultural-interaction-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1761628/we-club-promotes-cross-cultural-interaction-hong-kong?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Apr 2015 11:30:30 +0000 WHEN I WAS 17 (in 1974), I was sentenced to death. I had tried to kill the king of Iran (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi), to get rid of the dictatorship. I attacked a policeman to get his gun, to shoot the king, but I was arrested. THE POLICE SHOT ME. The bullet came through my back and out of my stomach. I went to political prison, where the shah's secret police - Savak - tortured me so badly the shin of my left leg was destroyed. Because I was under 18, it was (later) decided I was too young to... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1761575/why-i-tried-kill-shah-iran-filmmaker-mohsen-makhmalbaf?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1761575/why-i-tried-kill-shah-iran-filmmaker-mohsen-makhmalbaf?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 10 Apr 2015 02:45:30 +0000 Wild tigers did not exist within the borders of Hong Kong in the early 1900s, or so zoologists had believed. But a tombstone in Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley tells a different story. On March 9, 1915, Ernest Goucher was attacked by one of the big cats while on duty in the New Territories. He had been investigating the death of a villager in Sheung Shui who had reportedly been killed by a tiger. Residents had run into Fanling police station earlier that month to report sightings of a tiger... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1757424/how-wild-tiger-killed-two-hong-kong-policemen-100-years-ago?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1757424/how-wild-tiger-killed-two-hong-kong-policemen-100-years-ago?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 06 Apr 2015 04:15:00 +0000 In 1982, British photographer Nick Danziger set out on an 18-month journey along the ancient Silk Road. Disguised as an itinerant Muslim, he walked through Turkey, explored the world of the ayatollahs in Iran, illegally entered Afghanistan, dodged fire from Russian helicopter gunships and became the first foreigner to cross into China via the Khunjerab Pass in Pakistan since the 1949 revolution. The photographs he took resulted in the bestselling book Danziger's Travels: Beyond Forbidden... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1754033/how-nick-danziger-photographed-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1754033/how-nick-danziger-photographed-north-korea?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 04 Apr 2015 14:02:07 +0000 For six weeks, the 64-year-old Malaysian-born specialist in infectious diseases treated victims of the deadly epidemic sweeping West Africa, where nearly 10,000 people have died from the virus (4,162 of them in Liberia) and 24,247 cases have been reported. Kwan's blog about her harrowing time in Bong County was written for her family, but has been read all over the world. The following is an abridged version …   OCTOBER 14 Tomorrow, I head to Bong, in Liberia, to volunteer with International... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1736695/ebola-diary-dr-kwan-kew-lais-harrowing-journal-her-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1736695/ebola-diary-dr-kwan-kew-lais-harrowing-journal-her-time?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Mar 2015 14:30:15 +0000 Crafty Cow 3-3A Upper Station Street, Sheung Wan Tel: 2915 8988 Open: Tuesday-Saturday 6pm-late, Sunday 11am-7pm The vibe: Upper Station Street is the heart of Poho (the area around Po Hing Fong), and Crafty Cow is the latest edition to the culinary Mexican wave rippling up the hillside. A craft beer gastropub with an East London shabby-chic vibe, this bar has high stalls, low lights and an open kitchen. The drinks: if you aren't a beer fan, head to SoHo, Noho or Koho (that last "oho",... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48-hours/article/1728558/bar-review-crafty-cow-shabby-chic-poho-gastropub?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48-hours/article/1728558/bar-review-crafty-cow-shabby-chic-poho-gastropub?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Mar 2015 14:45:00 +0000 FROM NORWICH TO WHERE? I was born in Norwich. It's the largest city in the county of Norfolk, in England. I stayed there for a few days then my family moved to a market town where my great-grandfather had set up a construction firm in 1853. I eventually took it over - fourth generation to do so. When the second world war broke out, I fought with (Lieutenant-General Bernard) Montgomery in the Western Desert, in North Africa. I'm talking about the second battle of El Alamein, against the Italians... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1702766/60-years-hongkonger-dan-waters-teaching-tiananmen-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1702766/60-years-hongkonger-dan-waters-teaching-tiananmen-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Feb 2015 14:30:00 +0000 The vibe: a touch of the Horn of Africa, in, er, the Horn of Wan Chai. But Djiboutii's tribal decor, goats' skulls and safari-lodge wall mountings are where that theme ends. Probably a good job, as drunken behaviour in Islamic Djibouti can result in a two-year prison term. Outside Africa, there is a smouldering low-light setting, and some Arabian Nights-style golden tea pots. For the punctilious punters, we're informed Djiboutii has been spelled with an extra "i" as a nod to the bar's... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1693288/bar-review-djiboutii-taste-east-africa-wan-chai?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1693288/bar-review-djiboutii-taste-east-africa-wan-chai?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:45:15 +0000 The vibe: a touch of the Horn of Africa, in, er, the Horn of Wan Chai. But Djiboutii's tribal decor, goats' skulls and safari-lodge wall mountings are where that theme ends. Probably a good job, as drunken behaviour in Islamic Djibouti can result in a two-year prison term.> Outside Africa, there is a smouldering low-light setting, and some Arabian Nights-style golden tea pots. For the punctilious punters, we're informed Djiboutii has been spelled with an extra "i" as a nod to the bar's... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-wine/article/1693973/bar-review-djiboutii-taste-east-africa-wan-chai?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-wine/article/1693973/bar-review-djiboutii-taste-east-africa-wan-chai?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 28 Jan 2015 03:00:30 +0000 On September 22, Kenny Chiang posted a video on his official Facebook page with the message "RIP Francesco Fornabio. Fly high!" In the three-minute clip, the veteran Italian aerobatic pilot - described by one online commenter as a "poet of the sky" - flips, coils and nose-dives his yellow Breitling Extra 300 at speeds of up to 400km/h, a plume of celebratory smoke hissing in the aircraft's wake. It's a glorious montage of showmanship in a sport that has been described as the "Formula One of the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1688212/fasten-your-seatbelt-worlds-only-competing-chinese-aerobatic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1688212/fasten-your-seatbelt-worlds-only-competing-chinese-aerobatic?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:15:45 +0000 "My husband is the best Chinese chef in Zambia," says Liu Xiuyi, a former takeaway employee from Chongqing. "Whenever the president has Chinese guests in Lusaka, my husband is hired to cook for them." Twenty years ago, with no savings or formal education, the couple emigrated to Zambia when Liu's husband was hired as a chef by a Chinese state-owned construction company contracted to build roads in dusty Lusaka. Now in their 50s, the Lius have just built a 15 million kwacha (HK$18.3 million)... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1676851/how-chinese-zambia-are-getting-rich-and-boosting-tourism?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1676851/how-chinese-zambia-are-getting-rich-and-boosting-tourism?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Jan 2015 14:30:45 +0000 Tired of gyms, 10K runs and army-style fitness clubs? Here's an alternative way to work off December's delicious excesses: Bollywood aerobics. "It's a lot of fitness, a lot of toning and a lot of fun," says Simran Obhan, an interior designer-turned-professional dancer, who moved from the home of Bollywood, Mumbai, to Hong Kong last year. In India, she says, "Bollyrobics" is already a craze but dance classes are the only Bollywood-themed activities gyms here currently offer. "People are... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1664653/bollywood-aerobics-delivers-fitness-toning-and-lot-fun?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1664653/bollywood-aerobics-delivers-fitness-toning-and-lot-fun?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Dec 2014 15:51:05 +0000 There's something of a dark irony to promoting Ethiopian dining, given the country's tragic history of famine. Just over 30 years ago, the BBC transmitted devastating images from northern Ethiopia showing 15,000 children dying from starvation. The broadcast moved Irish singer Bob Geldof to organise charity concert Live Aid, and brought Ethiopia's food crisis to the world's attention. But times have changed. Today Ethiopia has one of the continent's fastest growing non-oil-dependent... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1660373/ethiopian-cuisine-pops-hong-kong-first-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/1660373/ethiopian-cuisine-pops-hong-kong-first-time?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Dec 2014 10:15:30 +0000 Is living on Lamma like joining a cult? Converts can't seem to stop themselves preaching about their hippy haven. Waves lap the shore as you leave the ferry, they'll say (gag). The air is so clean. There's a real community! But when I go to Lamma, I end up on a gritty beach facing a set of enormous power station chimneys. Hmm, breathe in those delicious fumes! Yung Shue Wan on a Saturday is as congested as Nathan Road, only the rich mainlanders have been switched for badly dressed expats in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1649914/rant-mutton-dressed-lamma?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1649914/rant-mutton-dressed-lamma?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Nov 2014 14:12:39 +0000 We all know China likes its bling, so it comes as no surprise to discover that Shanghai - that city of spaceship skyscrapers and bottle-opener-shaped buildings - has taken the iconic black hackney carriage and painted it (you guessed it) gold. Two hundred of the flashy rides will go into operation this year, with 50 already having hit the streets last month. Qiangsheng, the city's largest taxi operator and the owner of the fleet, says gold cabs are more "appropriate" for Shanghai than black... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1628111/something-new-gold-new-black?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1628111/something-new-gold-new-black?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 01 Nov 2014 14:27:20 +0000 Rummin’ Tings 28 Hollywood Road, Central Tel: 2523 7070   The vibe: brought to you by the guys behind Fatty Crab, Rummin' Tings is just as hip as its New York-inspired cousin. Crustaceans have been replacecd by a Caribbean theme, lending the bar a classy St Barts cocktails-by-the-beach feel, and definitely not a "let's don an eye-patch and throw a pirate-themed birthday party" thing. At Rummin' Tings, it's bright colours, urban music and beautiful people. The drinks: if you think rum is just... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1627494/bar-review-rummin-tings-has-more-80-varieties-rum-and-good-bar-food?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1627494/bar-review-rummin-tings-has-more-80-varieties-rum-and-good-bar-food?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 29 Oct 2014 15:00:15 +0000 What's the vibe? Imagine the Grand Budapest Hotel has been torn from Wes Anderson's cinematic grasp and deposited in Taipei. That's the image evoked by this beautiful, French Renaissance-style building, which took the Mandarin group eight years to build. Inside, high-ceilinged marble halls are crowned with sparkling chandeliers, beneath which gold-plated luggage trolleys are pushed by white-gloved attendants. In case you get disoriented by all this Gallic splendour, the hotel is decorated... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1616138/hot-spots-mandarin-oriental-taipei?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1616138/hot-spots-mandarin-oriental-taipei?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Oct 2014 14:47:09 +0000 Let's play a game. I'm eating Jamrock jerk chicken, rasta veggie patties and callaloo with cassava chips. Where am I? Nope, it's not Trinidad, Tobago or Antigua (although wouldn't that be nice!), I'm at Hong Kong's only Caribbean restaurant, which opened this month. While Mandy's Private Kitchen, in Sai Kung, has been serving Caribbean creations for a while (Mandy is married to a Trinidad native), Rummin' Tings is a fully fledged eatery based on the tropical islands' cuisine, which is influenced... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1617520/something-new-taste-caribbean?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1617520/something-new-taste-caribbean?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 18 Oct 2014 14:45:15 +0000 The Shui Lo Cho pools are a waterfall-linked series of baths, where - until recently - you could swim with wild fish and take selfies in the glittering cascade. Bloggers began blabbing about this spot (an hour's hike from Tai O) a while back, and bestowed on it a rather misleading moniker: "The hidden Lantau natural infinity pools". By using "natural" they ignored the fact the pools formed behind dams built by the Water Supplies Department. And the "hidden" overlookd the two pages of Google... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1612699/rant-pool-party-poopers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1612699/rant-pool-party-poopers?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Oct 2014 14:15:15 +0000 Life aboard a colonial tea clipper, with its motley crew sweating on the sails by day and swigging ale come night, might not have been particularly … fragrant. But a romantic notion survives of those 19th-century voyages; clippers racing across the Indian Ocean and around the Cape of Good Hope to deliver decadent commodities to London from the far-flung Orient. Now historic English perfume house Penhaligon's has bottled what it imagines was the aroma of those ships as the fragrance Lothair, part... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1612700/something-new-ship-bottle?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1612700/something-new-ship-bottle?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Oct 2014 14:15:15 +0000 PAPER TRAIL I was born in Joburg, the big city of gold in the 1970s. My parents had arrived separately from Guangdong: my dad in the late 50s, as a stowaway, and my mother in the early 60s. My dad had been orphaned and China was in freefall. He just wanted to get to anywhere the "golden mountains" had been established - San Francisco, Melbourne, Joburg. In South Africa, my parents bought fake papers and changed their identities - they became "paper sons and daughters". My parents were introduced... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1572896/my-life-ufrieda-ho?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1572896/my-life-ufrieda-ho?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Aug 2014 15:30:15 +0000 Beep. "Thunderstorm warning extended until 9.30am," says the Hong Kong Observatory app alert. "Urgh, sounds like typical August weather," I think. Better grab my umbrella. It's pretty sunny outside, though. In fact, there isn't even a hint of rain. BUZZ. Thunderstorm warning extended until 10.30am. VIBRATE. Er, actually, can you give us till 11.30am for that storm? JUDDER. Sorry, probs going to be more like 12.30pm. It's held up in traffic. This app was supposed to make life easier. No more... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1568220/rant-app-storm?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1568220/rant-app-storm?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Aug 2014 15:12:34 +0000 What is it? Imagine a spire-shaped ICC rising up from among Victorian red-brick buildings in historic London. That's essentially The Shard (above). Italian architect Renzo Piano's 1,004-foot tall tower on the banks of the Thames was meant to open by the 2012 Olympics, but was six months late. The Shangri-La, which occupies the mid-levels of this 87-floor skyscraper with a jagged peak, followed suit this May. The hotel chain says it waited a decade to find a special London location before signing... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1567573/hot-spots-shangri-la-shard-london?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1567573/hot-spots-shangri-la-shard-london?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 09 Aug 2014 15:10:21 +0000 Bubble Soccer is everything you'd expect of a sport inspired by a Japanese game show. Players squeeze into zorb-like inflatable bubbles and - as in the beautiful game - two teams try to score goals, albeit while adjusting to a humpty-dumpty physique. The result is ridiculous amounts of fun (see www.bubblesoccer.hk). Who cares if you can't properly see who's on your team, or if life in the bubble gets increasingly sticky, when tackling consists of bouncing into your opponent at top speed? This... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1558136/something-new-bubble-soccer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1558136/something-new-bubble-soccer?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Jul 2014 15:15:30 +0000 Soup on my nose, a nearly spilled glass of merlot and chocolate down my white blouse. As blind dates go, this was a messy one. But (for once) my clumsiness wasn't plonk induced. Nor was I dining with a never-before-met companion. This blind date was of the literal variety: we could not see a thing. "Put your left hand on my shoulder, and then we'll take small steps forward," Michael, the visually impaired server, said in an East London accent. We three shuffled along, brushing past heavy... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1550984/something-new-blind-dates-alchemy-dark?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1550984/something-new-blind-dates-alchemy-dark?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 12 Jul 2014 15:15:15 +0000 Eman Okonkwo's foot-tapping at the altar is not a sign of nerves. The groom's palms aren't sweaty, there are no pre-wedding jitters and certainly no second thoughts. Today he is realising a dream imagined by countless African merchants in Guangzhou: he is marrying a Chinese bride. Seven days earlier, Jennifer Tsang's family was oblivious to their daughter's romance. Like many local women dating African men, the curvaceous trader from Foshan, who is in her late 20s - that dreaded "leftover woman"... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1521076/afro-chinese-marriages-boom-guangzhou-will-it-be-til-death?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1521076/afro-chinese-marriages-boom-guangzhou-will-it-be-til-death?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 01 Jul 2014 16:00:00 +0000 If a champagne brunch culture had swept Peking during the dying days of the Qing dynasty, this is how the Empress Dowager Cixi - who liked to be served 150 courses per banquet and eat with gold chopsticks - would have wanted it. Banished would be eggs benedict (how basic) and oysters (too European). The empress and her entourage would have feasted on endless pork dumplings, hand-picked whole abalone, chilli grouper and jade green bamboo shoots, while sipping Veuve Clicquot and enjoying panoramic... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1530778/something-new-let-them-eat-brunch?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1530778/something-new-let-them-eat-brunch?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 14 Jun 2014 16:00:30 +0000 THE WILD EAST I'm a Texas boy, born and bred, so it's interesting I ended up in Xinjiang. There's quite a few correlations between the two: the Wild West nature, the large, unpopulated expanse, the adventure of it all. Growing up, I was not familiar with China. Two months after I graduated from Belmont University, Nashville, I married my high school sweetheart, Tiffany. We wanted to move overseas, but the only opportunity that came up was China. A professor my wife knew had visited Karamay (in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1525810/my-life-josh-summers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1525810/my-life-josh-summers?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 Jun 2014 17:00:15 +0000 Oh, the irony. Hong Kong - a city that has demolished many of its historic relics (the old Hong Kong Club, the former Foreign Correspondents' Club on Conduit Road) - is reviving a Victorian fairground ride: the Ferris wheel. From September, behind Central Ferry Pier 8, this rotating hamster wheel of yesteryear will cower before hi-tech high-rises that form one of the world's most spectacular skylines. The ICC stands at 484 metres, Two IFC is 420 metres, the Hong Kong "Eye", meanwhile, will spin... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1521051/rant-hong-kong-ferris-wheel-eye-eyes-sake?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1521051/rant-hong-kong-ferris-wheel-eye-eyes-sake?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 31 May 2014 15:58:24 +0000 Plop. That was the sound the cotton bud made when it fell into my sauvignon blanc, soiled-side up. This, it seems, is the peril of having a terrace in Hong Kong. Neighbours feel 17 floors (or so) of separation is just too far for community spirit to stretch. Imagine tossing aside your litter and never seeing it again. The window is a magic bin. Mr Cotton Bud - surely, a woman couldn't be so blasé - cleans his ears daily and loves flicking the dirty little arrow out of his magic window. I've... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1512652/rant-refuse-scoundrels?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1512652/rant-refuse-scoundrels?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 17 May 2014 15:06:42 +0000 Tivo 33 Praya, Kennedy Town Tel: 2543 1238   The vibe: part of the Aqua group, Tivo shares a name with its older sibling on Wyndham Street, but that's where the family resemblance ends. The newer branch's vibe is relaxed New York shabby chic. Its windows, fringed with red wet market lights, open to the view of the Praya and Holland Streets, providing this end of Kennedy Town with its first hit of nightlife. Sit by the street and enjoy watching runners and tai chi enthusiasts milling around... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1512089/bar-review-tivo-buzzing-everyday-kennedy-town?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/48hrs/article/1512089/bar-review-tivo-buzzing-everyday-kennedy-town?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 14 May 2014 15:15:15 +0000 What is it? The first Mandarin Oriental in the Bei-Shang-Guang triangle (the Shanghai property opened last year while the unfinished Beijing hotel, which would have been the first, was destroyed in a freak fire) is an opulent retreat from the Guangzhou grind without even a hint of mainland bling. Dim lighting, dark wood and a modest lobby all say low-key class and, if the users of TripAdvisor are to be trusted, this is the best of Guangzhou's 2,388 hotels. Guangzhou, you say? Once the mainland's... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1506562/hot-spots-mandarin-oriental-guangzhou?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1506562/hot-spots-mandarin-oriental-guangzhou?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 May 2014 14:45:15 +0000 What is it? A place where cosplay and aerobics meet Disney fantasies. The Philippine Mermaid Swimming Academy (PMSA) has three bases on Boracay, one in Manila and another opening in Cebu. On Boracay's glorious White Beach, customers don a spandex monofin and learn mermaid snorkelling, mermaid fitness and "modern mermaid", wherein they explore the undersea world on a water scooter. Are you serious? We swear on our tritons this is genuine. Founded in 2012 by Anamie Saenz (right) - who also... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1494380/hot-spots-philippine-mermaid-swimming-academy-boracay?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1494380/hot-spots-philippine-mermaid-swimming-academy-boracay?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 26 Apr 2014 15:00:45 +0000