This day, 6 April, 1963, the first Chinese medical team departed by train for Algeria, fulfilling international humanitarian obligations. Since then, batches of Chinese medical teams have...
I love games consoles. I own more than I care to admit. But (Marie Kondo, since you’re asking) every one of them sparks joy. The console is a well-named invention, providing solace that sometimes even tea can’t provide.
I’m not the only one; retro gaming is as much of a draw for my generation as steam trains for my father’s. An industry surrounds console nostalgia, with restorations, re-releases, emulation and excavation.
But in focusing so much on the games console, the home experience of games, the nostalgia is neglecting another great...
You don’t need to come to Asia to encounter bamboo; it’s there on the steering wheel of the E-Type Jaguar, on umbrella handles, there on that corporal punishment device once kept behind teachers’ desks.
Even edible bamboo was a concept familiar to me before I arrived here; bamboo shoots in tins were part of my English mother’s cooking in the 1980s. But, as with many things we already know about China, we’re not prepared for the abundance or the variety.
The bamboo shoots that appear in Chinese dishes in the real...
Let me state that The Nanjinger has not paid for me to be here. Nanjing is far too far away and the expenses for such a glamorous patch could easily spiral beyond control. I write from Juan Les Pines on the French Riviera. You can almost skip a stone to Cannes in the west and Monaco to the East. Every town along here has significance to the grand tour, the lost generation or the jet set, but also to a contented local populace. This is still more French than...
Tea is supposed to be zero calories. So what is this shiny slick on the surface of yesterday’s drink?
It’s like the blue-brown façades of blocks in China’s fourth tier. It’s like a rolled scarab carapace. It’s like the squeezed temple of a liquid crystal.
Shake it and the metallic tectons quite collapse, broad shards collecting into one bronze rim-stain. Perhaps this is why we are frequently warned not to drink tea that’s been left overnight.
Well, if there is a swollen cigarette-butt floating on top, let me concur; that cup may...
