https://www.scmp.com/rss/318914/feed Pallavi Aiyar is a journalist and author of Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China. She is currently based in Tokyo. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com India and masala chai are inextricably linked in the popular imagination. Across the country, the sweet and spicy aroma of chai (which means tea) wafts out of homes, offices and railway stations.  Its rich, creamy consistency invokes comparisons to coffee, and even in Starbucks it is as much a part of daily life as its bean-based competitor. And if we read the tea leaves closely, we will see that the history of masala chai is intertwined with China and its own troubled history with the British... https://www.scmp.com/food/india-empire-and-china-history-masala-chai/article/3040228?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/food/india-empire-and-china-history-masala-chai/article/3040228?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 02 Dec 2019 10:10:04 +0000 The inauguration this week of India’s first high-speed rail corridor between Mumbai and Ahmadabad, using Japanese technology and financing, has a geostrategic significance that transcends its economic worth. It amplifies the growing closeness between India and Japan at a time when both nations are struggling to find their footing in an Asia being re-fashioned by an ascendant China. New Delhi and Tokyo have long-standing territorial disputes with China. Both are concerned about Beijing’s... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2111428/shinkansen-india-and-japans-silver-bullet-rising-china?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/2111428/shinkansen-india-and-japans-silver-bullet-rising-china?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Sep 2017 04:03:47 +0000 Hiroyoshi takeda is not a typical Japanese man. Instead of a suit and tie, the 39-year-old Tokyoite wears T-shirts with technicolour caricatures of a moustachioed south Indian movie star. Rather than bowing, he dances. He doesn’t ride the metro, but travels the streets in a gaudily adorned auto rickshaw imported from Tamil Nadu. Not for him the hushed tones and constricted body language that are the Japanese standard. Takeda talks loudly, waggling his index finger at the sky. And the smoothness... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2104058/tamil-star-who-inspired-new-life-paths-his-japanese-fan-club?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2104058/tamil-star-who-inspired-new-life-paths-his-japanese-fan-club?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 30 Jul 2017 11:32:18 +0000 The international spotlight inevitably trained on any city hosting the Olympic Games tends to unearth challenges ranging from health and safety to environmental protection and infrastructure. Among this smorgasbord of issues, the toilet is a staple. The hundreds of thousands of foreign athletes, fans and tourists that the world’s largest sporting spectacle attracts raises the question of where – and how comfortably – these visitors will be able to powder their noses. In the run up to the 2008... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2096216/olympic-toilets-japan-sets-gold-standard-china-distant-number-2?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2096216/olympic-toilets-japan-sets-gold-standard-china-distant-number-2?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 03 Jun 2017 04:02:30 +0000 It was the 1970s, a time when space exploration captured the global imagination. Star Trek and Star Wars had burst onto screens. Nasa had launched Voyager-1 to explore the outer solar system. In Japan’s Chiba prefecture, not far from the capital of Tokyo, a little girl, Naoko Yamazaki, sat on her living room couch transfixed at science fiction anime and dreamt about visiting space for herself. More than three decades later, on April 5, 2010, Yamazaki, 39, donned a bright orange spacesuit and... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2077443/japans-mother-astronaut-and-why-women-are-suited-space-travel?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2077443/japans-mother-astronaut-and-why-women-are-suited-space-travel?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 12 Mar 2017 05:02:08 +0000 Having grown up in perennially polluted New Delhi, smoggy skies were so unremarkable to me that I didn’t even notice anything was awry in Beijing for years after moving there. Till a spring morning in 2006. It was an ordinary start to the day in most respects. I ate a quick breakfast of jian bing, crispy dough and egg pancakes brushed with a spicy sauce, and then made my way to my study. It was only when I looked out of the window above my desk that I realised this was anything but an ordinary... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2053251/delhi-where-even-chinas-pollution-fades-insignificance?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/article/2053251/delhi-where-even-chinas-pollution-fades-insignificance?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Dec 2016 03:00:00 +0000 The discourse on Asia's "rise" is dominated by China and India, countries whose vast populations and buoyant economies have captured the imagination of international investors, journalists and policy analysts. "Chindia"-scented rhetoric abounds with catchphrases that state the obvious, but whose import is less so. China has the hardware, India the software; India needs China's roads, China could do with India's political inclusiveness. Given how fundamentally different India and China are,... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1778843/india-and-indonesia-are-two-kind?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1778843/india-and-indonesia-are-two-kind?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 28 Apr 2015 09:30:15 +0000