Confucius may be China’s best known scholar, especially on a global level, but he was not her most influential. That is a title that falls better to Zhu Xi, he being but one of the many reasons for a...
It was known as the Hong Kong Walled City, or The City of Darkness. Infamous for its 30 years of ungoverned vice and much more. Run by the Triads, the city that never saw sunlight was an entity unto...
The word “Taiping” is virtually a cliché. As a place name, this is the local equivalent of Springfield in the USA; no less than 47 towns in China go by the moniker. Then the name pops up in Taiping...
“How much is this?” I asked the shop keeper, holding a handmade leather bag. It smelled raw and felt smooth, styled rustically. It brought me back to Chiapas, in the mountains of southern Mexico. A place that, just as...
The crowds may flock to Cebu, but amid this tropical yet contradictory Asian paradise that comprises over 7,000 islands, much more is to be had off the Philippines’ beaten paths. For The Nanjinger, the more ramshackle the shanty town,...
Something like a 3-hour trip from tropical Xiamen sit the roundhouses of the Hakka. Declared a UNESCO world cultural heritage site in 2008 due to their unique style and architectural creativity, these houses reached fame due to an amusing...