How to Untangle the Complexities of Cross-Cultural Marriage
Western men are beguiled in their thousands by the enchanting women of Thailand. But many make poor choices when it comes to marrying women whose needs, habits and expectations are very different from their own, and a clash of cultures can ruin a romance. Who better to advise than a Thai woman herself? No topic is taboo as Pop Soisangwan offers ......
There is no single Asian language. But plenty of vogue words from this booming continent are entering English. Did you know there is a flower named after former dictator Kim Jong-il? The Chinese have a word shengnu, literally leftover for the new phenomenon of unmarried women over thirty. Can you tell your jeepney from your jilbab, or yakuza from ......
How a British adventurer became a general in Qing-dynasty China
WilliamMesny jumped ship at Shanghai in 1860 when he was just 18. Amid thechaos of foreign intrigue and civil war in 19th-century China, hebecame a smuggler, a prisoner of the Taiping rebels, a gun-runner andan instructor in the Chinese military. After five years of fiercefighting in remote Guizhou, Mesny rose to the rank of general andused this ......
An Illustrated History of Hong Kong's Top District
The Peak is Hong Kong's top residential district, where property prices are as high as the altitude. How did it become an exclusive enclave in the bustling business centre of 19th-century Asia? The British wanted relief from summer heat and the Peak was the obvious place to escape it. When the Governor adopted Mountain Lodge as a summer getaway, ......
In war, you can pretend to be someone you're not. Yet, in war, people find out who you really are. Hong Kong, 1941.
Anglo-Australian civil servant Dominic Sotherly's colonial sojourn in Hong Kong becomes complicated by his double life in both war and love. Enigmatic Englishwoman Gwen ......
From the yaks which graze at altitudes so high that vegetables cannot grow, and the paradise of Shangri-La; through the flower markets of Kunming, the dramatic tea terraces of Pu-er, and forest floors covered with wild mushrooms; to the tropical south where market stalls brim with brilliant red chillies and shimmering purple eggplants. Yunnan, an ......
Eric Meyer and Laurent Zylberman were the only freelance journalists allowed into Tibet after the 2008 riots which left parts of Lhasa in ruins. They saw the friction between two cultures: police and soldiers patrol the towns, while crowds of Han immigrants pour into the region like new frontier settlers seeking their fortunes. Tibet is going ......
Hong Kong, 1954. The British colony was not yet ready to hear about a Eurasian policeman having an affair with the police commissioner's daughter. Simon Lee tasted swift punishment. He was banished to the far tip of a wild and distant island a stone's throw from Chinese waters - to Tai O, the ancient trading post where fishermen, salt-farmers and ......
A Diary of Life as a Hong Kong Prisoner of War, 1941-1945
I cant visualise us getting out of this, but I want to TRY to believe in a future, wrote 23-year-old Barbara Anslow (then Redwood) in her diary on 8th December 1941, a few hours after Japan first attacked Hong Kong. Barbaras 1941-1945 diaries (with post-war explanations where necessary) are an invaluable source of information on the civilian ......
