https://www.scmp.com/rss/502949/feed Shawn Yuan is a journalist and photographer based in Beirut and Baghdad. His work focuses on politics, environment and China’s global outreach, especially in the Middle East and Africa. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com As the morning fog lifts over a river cutting through dense jungle in Panama, a small wooden boat with loud engines breaks the calm. On board are migrants clad in life jackets. They have just made it out of the Darien Gap, a stretch of rainforest that separates South and North America. As the vessel docks at a makeshift pier, Cai Fei, a weathered 58-year-old Chinese man covered in bruises, steps off the wooden boat and lets out a long-awaited sigh of relief. “Finally! We made it out alive,” he... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3231507/why-chinese-migrants-us-risk-deadly-journey-jungles-south-america?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3231507/why-chinese-migrants-us-risk-deadly-journey-jungles-south-america?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 20 Aug 2023 10:15:08 +0000 Tucked into the labyrinth of narrow alleyways in Pate Island’s Siyu village, Mama Baraka’s house itself isn’t much to see, with its cracking clay walls and poorly lit rooms draped with mosquito nets. But one feature in this typical house on Pate, a tiny island off the coast of Kenya, has brought curious observers from afar: a single porcelain bowl that has been passed down through Mama’s family, an artefact that she says proves her ancestors came from China, by boat, hundreds of years ago. “We... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3200161/how-story-africans-descended-15th-century-chinese-admiral-zheng-hes-sailors-lives?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3200161/how-story-africans-descended-15th-century-chinese-admiral-zheng-hes-sailors-lives?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 20 Nov 2022 01:15:12 +0000 In Hong Kong it was the extradition bill. In Lebanon it was the WhatsApp tax. Both were withdrawn in the face of public anger, but did little to satisfy protesters who made more demands. Lebanon has been gripped by more than five weeks of protests against the country’s ruling elite, with public anger exacerbated by the country’s worst economic crisis since the 1975-90 civil war. Protesters there have watched events unfold in Hong Kong, where street demonstrations that began in June escalated... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/middle-east/article/3039777/lebanon-hong-kong-killed-unpopular-bill-so-why-are-people?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/middle-east/article/3039777/lebanon-hong-kong-killed-unpopular-bill-so-why-are-people?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 28 Nov 2019 23:00:13 +0000