https://www.scmp.com/rss/309736/feed Thomas Bird is an East Asia-based writer chiefly concerned with travel, the environment and art. He has contributed to several guidebooks including The Rough Guide To Thailand. He's a regular contributing writer to the South China Morning Post and the author of Harmony Express. He likes train travel, craft beer and the teachings of Zhuangzi. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com Thomas Bird Thomas Bird Accounts of mysterious and ancient ruins overgrown by Southeast Asian jungle first reached Europe by way of 16th century Portuguese missionaries. But it would be a 19th century French bug collector who would earn his place in history for discovering the imperial capital of Angkor, whose central temple complex would come to be known as the largest religious structure in the world. The Angkor Archaeological Park now attracts more than 2 million visitors per year. The diaries of Henri Mouhot,... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3326358/angkor-wat-and-chinese-marco-polo-zhou-daguans-cambodia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3326358/angkor-wat-and-chinese-marco-polo-zhou-daguans-cambodia?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Sep 2025 11:15:10 +0000 Thomas Bird Thomas Bird To get a sense of the Thai capital’s yin-yang character, Bangkok-based designer Saran Yen Panya recommends beginning an exploration at the Italian-designed railway station Hua Lamphong, which dates back to 1916 and still functions as a terminus for the nation’s Eastern Line. It also houses a museum. Chinatown and Song Wat “Just head from the station towards the Chao Phraya river,” suggests Saran. “Don’t use Google Maps.” This leads to the labyrinthine Chinatown, originally a Teochew trading... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3325561/insiders-guide-bangkok-eat-shop-and-socialise-local?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3325561/insiders-guide-bangkok-eat-shop-and-socialise-local?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 15 Sep 2025 10:15:08 +0000 Thomas Bird Thomas Bird Standing 1,900 metres above sea level, the old city of Kunming has ballooned into a metropolis of almost 6 million, double what the population was 20 years ago. Nevertheless, Yunnan’s provincial capital maintains a small-town vibe when compared with other large Chinese cities. The Old Street, running west off central Zhengyi Street, through the Flower and Bird Market, is lined with gemstone vendors, textile stores and cafes. The city’s main draws are the “wine-glass-shaped buildings” – twin... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3312495/insiders-guide-kunming-what-eat-drink-and-do-yunnan-capital?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3312495/insiders-guide-kunming-what-eat-drink-and-do-yunnan-capital?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Jun 2025 05:00:07 +0000 Thomas Bird Thomas Bird When American travel writer Paul Theroux rolled around China researching seminal travelogue Riding the Iron Rooster (1988), the country was still a technological backwater. “The Chinese are the last people in the world still manufacturing spittoons, chamber-pots, treadle sewing-machines, bed-warmers, claw-hammers, ‘quill’ pens (steel nibs, dunk-and-write), wooden yokes for oxen, iron ploughs, sit-up-and-beg bicycles,” he observed, “and steam engines.” Theroux, of course, couldn’t have predicted... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3309561/4-rail-journeys-modern-day-china-far-cry-riding-iron-rooster?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3309561/4-rail-journeys-modern-day-china-far-cry-riding-iron-rooster?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 12 May 2025 05:00:10 +0000 Hua Hin is a three-and-a-half-hour train journey from Bangkok. Hugging the coast 200km from the Thai capital, the royal resort town is the northernmost district of Prachuap Khiri Khan province. “We’re located between the mountains and the sea, and enjoy good air quality most of the time,” says Patrick Jacobs, a 69-year-old retired hairdresser, citing one of the reasons he chose Hua Hin as a place to settle. “It’s small, but also international. Coming from Belgium, I speak four [European]... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3299543/insiders-guide-royal-playground-hua-hin-thai-riviera?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3299543/insiders-guide-royal-playground-hua-hin-thai-riviera?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 27 Feb 2025 04:00:12 +0000 Tainan might be Taiwan’s fourth city, but in cultural terms, it punches above its weight. For centuries, the area was inhabited by the Siraya people but change came with the Dutch East India Company, which established a base off present-day Anping in 1624. The Europeans attracted labourers from across the strait and Han migrants soon outnumbered both the Europeans and the aboriginals. In 1662, the Ming rebel leader Koxinga vanquished the Dutch and founded the Kingdom of Tungning, under which... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3289663/insiders-guide-tainan-taiwan-where-history-art-and-cuisine-come-alive?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3289663/insiders-guide-tainan-taiwan-where-history-art-and-cuisine-come-alive?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Dec 2024 10:15:08 +0000 Vietnam might have transformed into a Southeast Asian power­house over recent decades but its elegant capital remains imbued with the past. The city’s location – “between the rivers”, as “ha noi” translates as – made it an obvious place in which to build a citadel, with records stretching back to the third century BC. Hanoi’s many historic monuments and contemporary venues allude to its position as Vietnam’s cultural nerve centre today. According to interpreter Pham Thi Thuy Duong, art director... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3286219/uncovering-hanoi-vietnams-rich-culture-and-cuisine?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3286219/uncovering-hanoi-vietnams-rich-culture-and-cuisine?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 12 Nov 2024 11:15:08 +0000 Lapped by aquamarine waters and framed by rainforest-draped hills, Puerto Galera is situated on the northern tip of the Philippines’ Mindoro Island. The name ‘galera’ refers to a galley – a cargo vessel – but local lore has it that Puerto Galera means “Port of the Galleons”, referring to the Spanish treasure ships that sailed between Manila and Acapulco, Mexico, from the late 16th century. Certainly there are many treasures awaiting visitors in Puerto Galera, which boasts a Unesco-protected... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3283224/puerto-galera-beyond-reefs-insider-tips-philippines-hidden-gem?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3283224/puerto-galera-beyond-reefs-insider-tips-philippines-hidden-gem?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 21 Oct 2024 22:15:07 +0000 Better known as Monkey Jane, Lai Zhengxiu began catering to the needs of backpackers following the “banana pancake trail” from Southeast Asia to China’s Guangxi region in 2005, when she opened a hostel with a rooftop bar and a hedonistic reputation in the centre of Yangshuo town. “After I had my daughter, I decided to close it,” says Lai, who moved to the countryside to raise a family in 2019, but now runs Monkey Jane’s Café and Hostel, from an old brick house located on the banks of the Li... https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3282468/how-experience-yangshuo-china-local-beyond-its-famous-karst-mountains?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/postmag/travel/article/3282468/how-experience-yangshuo-china-local-beyond-its-famous-karst-mountains?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 16 Oct 2024 04:45:08 +0000 “We do all sorts of things: visit the lady-boy cabaret show at Ram Bar or watch Thai boxing at Loi Kroh Boxing Stadium,” says Faii Suporn, an ethnic Akha who leads residents of the Family Home 2 hostel to sample the best nightlife Chiang Mai, Thailand, has to offer. For visitors keen to have a go at Muay Thai, she recommends The Bear Fight Club, a gym in the old city that has “good coaches who work you hard”. “I go there to train when I have time,” says Faii, who sells locally made silverware by... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/article/3280790/locals-guide-chiang-mai-thailand-where-eat-what-do?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/article/3280790/locals-guide-chiang-mai-thailand-where-eat-what-do?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 02 Oct 2024 10:15:08 +0000 Alighting from the Guangzhou Metro at Gangding Station, I’m faced with navigating a swanky, subterranean shopping plaza lined with cosmetics stores and fast-food outlets while trying to find an exit. When I finally reach ground level, Tianhe District rocks to a chorus of car horns and the clamour of human traffic. There’s a gargantuan electronics mall opposite, hotels either side of me and a forest of skyscrapers blocking the horizon. The air, warmed by a million purring air conditioners, is... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3270093/filmmaker-yang-manmans-floating-population-club-community-art-space-guangzhous-rootless?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3270093/filmmaker-yang-manmans-floating-population-club-community-art-space-guangzhous-rootless?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 13 Jul 2024 03:45:09 +0000 When the Trinidad, Victoria and Concepcion anchored off Leyte island in 1521, the destiny of the Malay/Austronesian peoples inhabiting a chain of more than 7,000 islands was to be forever changed. The Spanish had arrived in what would come to be known as the Philippines. Things did not get off to a good start. The expedition leader, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, found willing converts to Christianity on Cebu, but Lapu-Lapu, rajah of neighbouring Mactan, did not take kindly to cavalier... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3261982/spanish-philippines-what-there-see-colonial-buildings-cebu-manila-and-beyond?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3261982/spanish-philippines-what-there-see-colonial-buildings-cebu-manila-and-beyond?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 May 2024 05:15:11 +0000 “I am currently in Dayi county, Sichuan province,” says Wang Lu over the phone, some 2,000km (1,240 miles) inland from his home in the coastal metropolis of Shanghai. “It’s a historic place and there are some notable museums,” he explains, “and, of course, there’s a railway I’m interested in photographing.” Travelling to distant locales such as Dayi in search of obscure stretches of railway track is not unusual for the 38-year-old Shanghainese shutterbug. Since leaving full-time employment in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3252146/plains-trains-and-uncommon-zeal-chinas-varied-landscapes-photographed-railways-traverse-them?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3252146/plains-trains-and-uncommon-zeal-chinas-varied-landscapes-photographed-railways-traverse-them?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 Feb 2024 04:45:10 +0000 West Street, Yangshuo’s main thoroughfare, in fact runs through the east of the town, so perhaps nowadays its name can be more closely associated with the Westerners who put the town on the tourist map in the late 1990s. Those travellers had followed the “Banana Pancake Trail” from Laos and Vietnam and fallen in love with a tumbledown town on a bucolic bend in the Li River, in southern China’s Guangxi region, where karst peaks loomed over jade waters and fields were full of grazing water... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3245573/once-chinas-backpacker-mecca-how-yangshuo-has-succumbed-mass-market-local-tourists-though-some?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3245573/once-chinas-backpacker-mecca-how-yangshuo-has-succumbed-mass-market-local-tourists-though-some?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 20 Dec 2023 23:15:07 +0000 Surrounded by frozen wheat and corn fields, deep within north China’s rust belt, the prefecture-level city of Shenyang (formerly known as Mukden) doesn’t look like a place where any world-turning events might happen. Amid the snow-dusted concrete tenements, Mao-era chimneys and steamy dumpling houses, there is but one world-class tourist site, the Mukden Palace. A handsome imitation of Beijing’s Forbidden City, it was built in 1625 to signpost the ruling Aisin-Gioro clan’s imperial aspirations,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3242583/how-foreign-powers-owned-chinas-railways-influenced-tracks-history-countrys-northeast?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3242583/how-foreign-powers-owned-chinas-railways-influenced-tracks-history-countrys-northeast?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 24 Nov 2023 23:45:18 +0000 On a map of the Philippines, Palawan resembles a keris, a short Malay sword. Ecologists call the Sulu Sea castaway the “last frontier” due to its unique flora and fauna – wildlife that has more in common with that in nearby Borneo than the rest of the Philippine archipelago. That – along with its unique geology, coral reefs and pearly white beaches – is why glossy magazines rank the island province as being among Asia’s best. The obvious way to reach the island from Manila would be by air, but... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3234338/slow-travel-philippine-paradise-palawan-bus-and-ferry-stop-dive-puerto-galera?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3234338/slow-travel-philippine-paradise-palawan-bus-and-ferry-stop-dive-puerto-galera?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Sep 2023 05:15:17 +0000 It’s difficult not to think about trains while in downtown Hanoi, especially at mealtimes. Long metal caravans shunting through town in plain view of the near-ubiquitous streetside eateries contribute a periodic clappity-clap rhythm to the city’s clamorous soundtrack. Tracks girdle the historical heart of the Vietnamese capital like the head of a question mark and in doing so, connect two of Hanoi’s most popular sites: the Long Bien Bridge, a colonial structure spanning the Red River that was... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3233218/1000-years-history-sandwiched-between-red-river-and-mekong-delta-reunification-express-through?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3233218/1000-years-history-sandwiched-between-red-river-and-mekong-delta-reunification-express-through?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 03 Sep 2023 05:15:12 +0000 Travel publisher Fodor has put Thailand on its “no list” for 2023, advising readers to avoid the overcrowding in tourist hotspots such as Koh Phi Phi, access point for Maya Bay, and dive mecca Koh Tao, where the authorities introduced a tourist user fee in 2022 to thin the crowds. Although Thailand is likely to miss its target for 2023 of hosting 30 million foreign tourists, as fewer visitors from China have returned than was expected, the crowds are back, so if you are planning a trip to one of... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3230199/thailand-it-was-mass-tourism-koh-kood-and-koh-phayam-get-close-nature-and-have-white-sand-beaches?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3230199/thailand-it-was-mass-tourism-koh-kood-and-koh-phayam-get-close-nature-and-have-white-sand-beaches?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 07 Aug 2023 10:15:18 +0000 Northeast of Guiyang, the capital of China’s Guizhou province, Zunyi is landlocked and remote, otherwise unremarkable had it not played host to the Zunyi Conference in 1935, where Mao Zedong assumed leadership of the Chinese Communist Party during the fabled Long March. A few “Red” tourism sites commemorate the Chairman’s rise. Other reasons to visit rustic Zunyi include the famous regional liquor Maotai, the surrounding hill country and ethnic minority villages, and the rock formations that... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3226747/how-chinas-avant-garde-musical-artists-blend-traditional-instruments-their-electronic-soundscapes?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3226747/how-chinas-avant-garde-musical-artists-blend-traditional-instruments-their-electronic-soundscapes?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 07 Jul 2023 23:45:08 +0000 I was born in Kent, southeast England, in 1967. My father, Dudley, was a dairy farmer. We’ve traced the family history back hundreds of years and every generation before me were farmers. Our home was literally in the middle of nowhere. You could call it a hamlet, but it didn’t have a name as it was just five or six houses down an 800-metre (2,600-foot) stretch of road. Most of my neighbours were relatives. I wouldn’t say it was difficult growing up. It was just a different kind of childhood. I... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3222779/it-has-just-exploded-thailand-train-blogger-richard-barrow-his-long-and-exciting-journey?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3222779/it-has-just-exploded-thailand-train-blogger-richard-barrow-his-long-and-exciting-journey?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 02 Jun 2023 23:15:11 +0000 I was born in 1980 in Ipswich, in the western suburbs of Brisbane. Back in the 1980s, Brisbane felt like more of a country town than, say, big cities like Sydney or Melbourne. I have fond memories of my dad pulling me out of school every second Friday and taking me to Fraser Island or somewhere along the Sunshine Coast, camping or fishing with my cousins. I thought it was awesome. We were always on some sort of adventure. To this day, I’m not much of a city boy, even though my business has taken... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3217867/catching-wave-teacher-taiwan-factory-owner-china-resort-developer-philippines-and-all-time-surfer?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3217867/catching-wave-teacher-taiwan-factory-owner-china-resort-developer-philippines-and-all-time-surfer?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Apr 2023 23:15:14 +0000 My father, Will Joe Cummings, enlisted in the marines during World War II and served in the Asia-Pacific theatre. He met my mother, Mary Curtis, in Germany right after the war and they married in 1950. Her father had been a commanding officer in Berlin, so I suppose you could say I’m a second-generation army brat. My father stayed on in the military and I was born in 1952 in New Orleans. Nomadic youth Until the age of 30 I never lived anywhere for more than three years. I can’t even remember how... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3215583/why-first-lonely-planet-thailand-travel-guide-author-fell-love-country-and-its-culture?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3215583/why-first-lonely-planet-thailand-travel-guide-author-fell-love-country-and-its-culture?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Apr 2023 08:15:16 +0000 The slow boat from Bali’s Padang Bai Harbour ferries heavy trucks and families of luggage-burdened passengers to Lombok for less than a third of the cost of the fast boats that zip between tourist hotspots such as Amed (Bali) and the Gili Islands (off the northwest coast of Lombok). As passengers crunch on kerupuk (prawn crackers), puff on clove cigarettes and gaze upon turquoise waters, our vessel carries us from Indomalaya to Australasia without fanfare. This biogeographical boundary is known... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3211231/other-side-lombok-indonesia-ancient-temples-open-hindus-and-muslims-alike-upland-shangri-la-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3211231/other-side-lombok-indonesia-ancient-temples-open-hindus-and-muslims-alike-upland-shangri-la-and?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 25 Feb 2023 04:45:09 +0000 I was born in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, in February 1981, but my parents were from Bangkok. They divorced and I was raised by my mother, Sawalak Somsong, while my dad took care of my older brother. As a single-parent family, we were poor. My mum rented a house right behind the market and opened a laundry shop. Chiang Mai was quite different from the city of today. There weren’t many hotels and seeing a foreigner was as alien as seeing (the Na’vi in) Avatar. Everything was much slower,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3208987/how-thai-poor-kid-dream-became-international-jazz-musician-and-author-and-opened-free-music-club?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3208987/how-thai-poor-kid-dream-became-international-jazz-musician-and-author-and-opened-free-music-club?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 05 Feb 2023 05:15:08 +0000 The gem dealers’ quarter in the Thai town of Chanthaburi is a warren of jewellers, stonecutters, wholesalers and retailers. Midweek visitors to the area – south of the old centre, around Trok Kachang and Thanon Sri Chan, the latter signposted as “Siam Gem Street” in English – browse gems piled in porcelain bowls like confectionery in a sweet shop. Jewellers examine stones through magnifying loupes while pretty, if bored-looking, shop assistants try to court business with promises of discounted... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3206120/rising-thailand-holiday-location-fast-gaining-reputation-great-weekend-break-bangkok?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3206120/rising-thailand-holiday-location-fast-gaining-reputation-great-weekend-break-bangkok?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 09 Jan 2023 10:15:09 +0000 Following a chance encounter between a small-town mayor named Lin Wenzhao and an equally ambitious photo editor called Duan Yuting in 2004, the idea for a contemporary photography festival in an obscure mountain town between the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Hunan was born. It was not long before the Lianzhou International Photo Festival entered the photography world’s lexicon, often uttered in the same breath as Les Rencontres D’Arles, a similarly experimental photography festival... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3205852/how-one-chinas-best-photography-festivals-suffered-slow-painful-demise?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3205852/how-one-chinas-best-photography-festivals-suffered-slow-painful-demise?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 08 Jan 2023 03:15:08 +0000 My father was from Liaoning province (in northeast China) and my mother was from Shandong (in the east). They went to Beijing in 1955. They were both early members of the Communist Party who had participated in the revolution. After (the founding of the People’s Republic of China in) 1949, they worked in the People’s Government in the northeast for a number of years. That’s where my elder brother, Qi Yixin, was born. In 1955, they were sent to work in the capital and I was born there, in Xicheng... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3202734/how-absurdist-theatre-canadian-trading-company-office-sparked-chinese-humorists-writing-career?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/books/article/3202734/how-absurdist-theatre-canadian-trading-company-office-sparked-chinese-humorists-writing-career?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Dec 2022 09:15:10 +0000 It’s an airless, languid day and the mugginess permeates the third-class train carriage. Passenger heads nod to the rhythm of the wheels, while the ceiling fans refuse to turn. As the rice plains to the west of Bangkok give way to the houses of Ratchaburi, a sudden cloudburst spurs passengers to hastily close the carriage windows. The rain doesn’t last long, and goes someway to breaking the oppressive heat. When I alight at Phetchaburi station, some 90km (56 miles) down the line from the Thai... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3202051/thailands-version-angkor-wat-plus-bustling-markets-thai-royal-retreats-and-cheeky-monkeys?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3202051/thailands-version-angkor-wat-plus-bustling-markets-thai-royal-retreats-and-cheeky-monkeys?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 05 Dec 2022 08:15:11 +0000 Chinese photographer Chen Ronghui’s rise to international acclaim over the past decade has been exponential. Born in Zhaoxu village, on the outskirts of Lishui, in 1989, he witnessed China’s fast-developing love affair with landscape photography, when Zhejiang province started attracting photographers from big cities such as Shanghai to shoot the bucolic mountain scenery. He became aware of art photography while in high school in Lishui, as the Lishui Photography Festival, a biennale founded in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3197464/photos-real-china-rise-and-rise-photographer-chen-ronghui?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3197464/photos-real-china-rise-and-rise-photographer-chen-ronghui?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 Oct 2022 09:15:10 +0000 Visitors and residents in Bali’s Canggu district are spoiled for choice when it comes to dining, and now, Shaanxi-style biang biang noodles have been added to the mix, courtesy of an émigré from northern China. The “Nanyang”, as the Chinese have long dubbed Southeast Asia, has attracted migrants from China since the Song dynasty (AD960-1279). Yet the majority sailed from southern provinces. Mandarin-speaking, wheat-eating Li Yang, then, is a rarity in Indonesia, where the bulk of “Chindos” can... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3195917/chinese-entrepreneurs-southeast-asia-whove-abandoned?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3195917/chinese-entrepreneurs-southeast-asia-whove-abandoned?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 15 Oct 2022 03:15:08 +0000 “You won’t be taking this far?” asks the assistant at the motorbike rental shop in Chiang Mai. “This Honda is new.” “Relax,” I say, “I just need it to go to the market from time to time.” She gives me the key but I sense reticence, as if she knows I’m going to push the basic automatic scooter to the very limits of its range. A week later, Bence Irmes, my guest house neighbour, says he’s planning “a country ride” with a friend and asks me whether I’d like to accompany them. I accept the... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3194227/tea-and-temples-two-wheel-trip-through-thailands?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3194227/tea-and-temples-two-wheel-trip-through-thailands?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Oct 2022 05:15:09 +0000 In 1582, Matteo Ricci arrived in Macau, with the aim of converting the Chinese to Christianity. But to do that, he would have to become accustomed to the mores of Ming China, including its language. “Many of the letters have the same sound, even if they are represented by a different character, and each one signifies many things,” he wrote. “Even among eloquent people, literati, who pronounce the language well, the Chinese often ask one another to repeat a word, and to say how it is written... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3192686/some-thought-chinese-language-would-die-they?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3192686/some-thought-chinese-language-would-die-they?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 16 Sep 2022 20:15:18 +0000 My father, Bao Fengchi, was an educated man, who spoke English and wrote books on military strategy in his youth. He rose to become a senior officer in the Northeastern Army under the Fengtian clique, one of many opposing military factions in the warlord period. In 1928, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek led the Northern Expedition and unified China under the Kuomintang. (The Old Marshal) Zhang Zuolin was killed on his way back to Manchuria and his son, (the Young Marshal) Zhang Xueliang, was made... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3189500/youth-cultural-revolution-photographer-one-best?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3189500/youth-cultural-revolution-photographer-one-best?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Aug 2022 05:15:15 +0000 Built in the Neo-Renaissance style, Bangkok’s Hua Lamphong railway station is a rare architectural beauty. The 106-year-old terminus was due to close last winter but rumours of its demise appear to have been greatly exaggerated, as Mark Twain might have put it. Six months after the shutters were supposed to come down, Hua Lamphong remains open, an outpouring of nostalgic remonstrations online having provoked a rethink by Thai authorities. And it’s hard to think of a more fitting point of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3185417/thailand-travel-train-bangkok-chiang-mai-northern?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3185417/thailand-travel-train-bangkok-chiang-mai-northern?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Jul 2022 05:15:16 +0000 A minivan transports day visitors and volunteers – of which I am one – from the guest houses of Chiang Mai’s ancient walled city to the Elephant Nature Park, almost 60km (37 miles) away, in Mae Taeng district. The anarchic rush-hour traffic doesn’t inspire much optimism, but the anxieties triggered by Thai road etiquette dissipate with each passing kilometre until a river of green supplants the stream of shophouses that have guided our passage north. “We’ll be arriving at the park soon,” senior... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3181007/close-elephants-sanctuary-thailand-volunteers?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3181007/close-elephants-sanctuary-thailand-volunteers?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 11 Jun 2022 05:15:17 +0000 The realm “beyond the wall” has long been a place of mystery and trepidation in the Chinese imagination. The steppe has incubated hostile forces since records began. Two millennia ago it was Xiongnu raiding parties that plagued the Han dynasty; a thousand years later Genghis Khan’s hordes appeared on the horizon and preceded to vanquish a cultural golden era, the Southern Song. As China watcher M.A. Aldrich, author of Ulaanbaatar Beyond Water and Grass (2017), explains from his home in Taiwan,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3179249/photos-chinas-vast-inner-mongolia-region-and-how?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3179249/photos-chinas-vast-inner-mongolia-region-and-how?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 28 May 2022 00:15:17 +0000 I was born in 1956 in Leeds, in the north of England. When I was three, my father left my mum Barbara with just a few shillings in her purse – barely enough to get us bus tickets to my grandparents in Brighouse, where I grew up. My mother was an incredibly strong woman and very hard-working. She worked two jobs to support us, which, looking back, I believe instilled an independent, fearless spirit in me. Her favourite saying was, “Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3177596/hong-kong-pr-firm-founder-who-worked-nigerian-prince-pulled?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/3177596/hong-kong-pr-firm-founder-who-worked-nigerian-prince-pulled?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 15 May 2022 07:00:18 +0000 The tide is in, the sea lapping gently against the guest house walls of Haad Rin Nai, also known as Sunset Beach, at the southern tip of Thailand’s Phangan island. Some of the resorts here look as if they’ve been hit by a storm – the ruins of better times, before the pandemic battered Southeast Asia’s tourism industry. And I’m the only resident at the Sun Beach Bungalows, although that’s about to change, according to my host: “We’re completely full next week.” The reason for the imminent surge,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3176733/its-not-all-full-moon-parties-thailands-koh-phangan?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3176733/its-not-all-full-moon-parties-thailands-koh-phangan?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 07 May 2022 00:15:09 +0000 I was born in 1961 in Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, a wonderful city of 165,000 inhabitants located near the German border and probably as far away from the coast as you can get. It’s not a natural place to nurture a maritime historian but it’s one of the oldest cities in the country and is located with two major rivers close by, the Waal and the Maas. So I guess you could say the focus of the waterways and the history of the place oriented me towards an interest in the sea to come. Made in Hong... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3175202/hong-kong-maritime-museums-dutch-director-how?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3175202/hong-kong-maritime-museums-dutch-director-how?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Apr 2022 05:15:18 +0000 Buddhist monk Myong An Sunim’s pandemic experience has been all the better for birdsong. “In the initial lockdown I suddenly noticed all the streets were quieter and that you could hear a lot of birds. It was really nice.” That’s certainly more pleasant than the ills of mass tourism that were being suffered pre-pandemic on the Malaysian island of Penang, where Sunim lives. Cruise-ship crowds, pub-crawlers and droves of durian lovers arriving for the harvest in May had compromised the island’s... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3171654/will-sustainable-travel-flourish-malaysia-post-pandemic?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3171654/will-sustainable-travel-flourish-malaysia-post-pandemic?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 27 Mar 2022 23:15:12 +0000 I was born in Baosheng Township, in the middle Sichuan province, in 1963, not long before the Cultural Revolution began. My mother, Zheng Dainong, worked in a nearby restaurant while my father was recruited as part of a campaign to develop the northwest and was sent to the arid province of Gansu. Baosheng is now a part of Meishan city, which is famous throughout China as the birthplace of (the Northern Song dynasty statesman) Su Dongpo. He went on to live all over China during his lifetime,... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3170946/founder-chinas-first-performance-art-festival?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3170946/founder-chinas-first-performance-art-festival?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 20 Mar 2022 08:15:16 +0000 “I was born four days before the Lunar New Year in 1974, during a big snow­storm that blanketed the north,” says Li Lin, a white-haired native of Shandong, eastern China, in his thick northern Chinese accent. “The doctor came to our family house in Gudao,” he says of the collective farm where he grew up. Translated as “Lonely Island”, the “Shandong Province State-owned Yellow River Farm” – later the “Jinan Wuqi Yellow River Farm” – was an artificial community, a product of Mao Zedong-era state... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3167392/history-should-not-be-forgotten-images-lost-past?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3167392/history-should-not-be-forgotten-images-lost-past?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 19 Feb 2022 05:15:15 +0000 Remembered as a catastrophic saga and humbling reckoning in American history, the Vietnam war is considered by the Vietnamese as the final chapter in a century-long struggle for independence, first from France, then the United States. The conflict ended when the Viet Cong’s Soviet T-54 tanks rolled into Saigon in 1975, a city then triumphantly renamed after Ho Chi Minh, the founder of the Communist Party of Vietnam, who had been dead six years by the time his long-held dream of a united and... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3166551/how-vietnam-war-leader-ho-chi-minhs-beliefs-were?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3166551/how-vietnam-war-leader-ho-chi-minhs-beliefs-were?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 13 Feb 2022 01:15:12 +0000 When Typhoon Rai smashed into the Philippines in mid-December, the island of Siargao was among the hardest hit. The storm killed at least 405 people and left a trail of destruction in the eastern provinces of Surigao del Norte – which includes Siargao, a tourist hotspot – Bohol and Cebu. Among those affected have been James and Marja O’Donnell. When James, an Australian, first ventured to Siargao 13 years ago, the island of 150,000 people had just a handful of rustic guest houses catering to... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3164244/boom-bust-dust-how-covid-19-and-typhoon-wrecked-siargao?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3164244/boom-bust-dust-how-covid-19-and-typhoon-wrecked-siargao?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 23 Jan 2022 05:15:14 +0000 I was born in 1960, on the South Fork of Long Island, and grew up in a rural setting populated by farmers, fishermen, manual labourers and small shopkeepers. My mother, Alice Lapinski, was the daughter of Polish immigrants, my father, Elmer “Cappy” Aldrich, was a carpenter of English heritage who could trace our Long Island ancestry to the 1720s and our New England line even further back to the early 17th century. By the time I came of age, Long Island, which once had deep cultural affinities... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3164259/my-life-asia-american-lawyer-turned-writer-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3164259/my-life-asia-american-lawyer-turned-writer-chinas?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Jan 2022 09:15:21 +0000 It was no coincidence that Lonely Planet’s second ever publication was Southeast Asia on a Shoestring (1975). The region has been synonymous with independent travel since its sun-soaked charms called out to a generation following the 1960s overland hippie trail. Alex Garland’s novel The Beach (1996) revived the mystique of Southeast Asia for Generation X, before Generation Y carried the low-budget travel baton into the new millennium, pressing dirt roads into a neat circuit signposted by... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3163375/gen-y-chinese-ride-out-covid-19-pandemic-thailand-malaysia?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3163375/gen-y-chinese-ride-out-covid-19-pandemic-thailand-malaysia?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 16 Jan 2022 05:15:20 +0000 Few countries have been affected by the shutdown of global travel to fight coronavirus more than Thailand. Bangkok was the most visited city in the world in 2019, ahead of Paris, France, and that year the country received 39.8 million visitors. The number plummeted to 6.7 million in 2020. But the country is emerging from isolation. Beginning with the Phuket Sandbox scheme in July, Thailand has been reviving its battered tourist industry. As of November 1, fully vaccinated travellers from... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3158877/travelling-thailand-during-covid-19-four-visitors-fully?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3158877/travelling-thailand-during-covid-19-four-visitors-fully?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Dec 2021 01:15:19 +0000 I was born in 1978 and grew up in Seattle, Washington, in the United States. It was a normal middle-class upbringing and I don’t remember all that much, apart from reading indoors while it was raining outside. I was “book dependent” by the age of six. I loved adventure stories, sci-fi and fantasy – you could say I was already a cerebral traveller. Nothing much out of the ordinary happened until my parents, Laurel Harmon and Barry Abrahamsen, moved my younger brother Peter and I to New... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3156514/how-american-fell-love-china-and-chinese?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/arts-music/article/3156514/how-american-fell-love-china-and-chinese?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 20 Nov 2021 20:15:07 +0000 Ever since Deng Xiaoping opened China to the world in late 1978, areas in and around the Pearl River Delta have seen the fastest growth during the country’s subsequent rise to become the second-largest economy in the world. Its now nine municipalities, dominated by Guangzhou and Shenzhen, have been linked with Hong Kong and Macau to create a region of 56,000 sq km (21,600 square miles) with a population of 86 million, known as the Greater Bay Area (GBA). While the GBA accounts for just one per... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3154019/wonders-old-and-new-chinas-greater-bay-area-land?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel/article/3154019/wonders-old-and-new-chinas-greater-bay-area-land?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 29 Oct 2021 10:15:12 +0000 Standing a few blocks east of Tiananmen Square, Beijing Railway Station is one of the Ten Great Buildings constructed in 1959 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Communist Party rule in China. In 2019, at the tail end of the Lunar New Year, entering this faux-Ming eulogy to so­cial­­ist liberation proved almost as challenging as getting into the Forbidden City during the actual Ming dynasty would have been. Our IDs were checked every 100 yards or so by security person­nel managing New Year... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3153116/history-chinas-first-successful-railway-and-how?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3153116/history-chinas-first-successful-railway-and-how?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 23 Oct 2021 05:15:20 +0000