Because of its fertile soil, abundant water and temperate climate, Jiangsu Province is known as China’s “Land of Fish and Rice.” In Yangzhou, the ancient Southern capital, the riches of Jiangsu are expressed in the design, construction and careful maintenance of magnificent urban gardens built by rich merchants centuries ago. Yangzhou gardens are designed to inspire, painting, poetry and calligraphy as well as friendly conversation and reflective thought…
By David DeVoss The PyeongChang Olympics may be over, but that no reason to stop thinking about Korea. Indeed, now’s a great time to start planning ahead for warmer months. By all means head back to PyeongChang, which is beautiful with or without snow, but check out Seoul before you do. Every Asian capital has…
By Diane Hope It wasn’t the most obvious place to enjoy the delights of Shanghai. I was on one of the pedestrian bridges above a six-lane surface street and beneath the elevated section of the Yan’An freeway at 7pm, the tail end of the evening rush hour. My twenty-something friend Robin was bored, shuffling from…
Dawn of the Aerotropolis By David DeVoss By David DeVoss Just outside Korea’s Incheon airport there are two roads leading to downtown. One heads east to the Korean capital of Seoul more than an hour’s drive away. The other angles south over a short causeway to New Songdo, a decade-old airport city that is known…
Fight or go Shopping? China and America Can’t Decide By David DeVoss It’s been a long time since China and the U.S. were as close as lips and teeth. When Chinese president Xi Jinping arrives in Washington DC this week he will find barely disguised outrage over Beijing’s suspected cyber attacks, its terraforming in the…
Avoiding Faux Pas in Asia By David DeVoss Rules regarding cultural interaction are simple. So why do we stumble so often when meeting clients in Asia? Often it’s because we assume all Sinitic cultures are the same. Or fail to remember that, despite its large Chinese population, a country like Malaysia is historically Islamic. Inadvertent…
The Japanese, stuck in a deadly epidemic of Covid-19, confronted by an unpopular Olympics end experiencing waning geopolitical influence, are pushing past these frustrations with a new government-led campaign to sell the world—and their own children—on their country’s distinctive traditional cuisine. They’re not talking about shrimp tempura, California rolls, or spicy tuna sashimi. No, the traditional washoku cooking that is becoming Japan’s new new thing consists of umami-flavored fish, soya, mushrooms, and seaweed steeped in dashi, a liquid made by boiling desiccated kelp with dried tuna shavings. It is, for some, an acquired taste.