14,000 feet above sea level and trapped at Tibet's Tashilhunpo Monastery until spring, 27 year old Scotsman George Bogle was having the time of his life. For six months in winter 1774-5, when the first Briton to visit the Panchen Lama's court was not discussing the world by the Panchen Lama's side, he was hunting and feasting with the Lama's nephews; at other moments, in the chambers of the Lama's niece, there was even a suggestion of romance. "When I look on the time I have spent among the Hills," he wrote home to his sister Elizabeth, "it appears like a fairy dream."....... Read this article
"Iam one of the last left, you know," Madame Han tells onlookers. Madame Han is 84 years old, and has tiny bound feet. We are in a shoemaker's in Shanghai and Madame Han waits patiently as the shoe-maker's assistant takes her measurements. "Strange to think it was an erotic thing," the boss Li Wanhong says to me as we watch. "To us, the smell of rotting flesh would be unbearable. But back then men wrote poems about the rich smell." ....... Read this article
PSE Cluster at Access 3 - 1 year programme in Personal and Social Education for use in Scottish secondary schools. Cluster Includes three units, "Social Awareness", "Personal Awareness" and Vocational Options....... More
Hollywood may be 8000 miles away from China's Song Mountain, but with every sweep of the razor the ten year old boy in the barber's chair takes one step closer. In a scene that might have come from Full Metal Jacket, great clumps of black hair tumble to the floor as the barber gets to work, shaving the hair down to the light fuzz of an apprentice monk.......Read this article
Kate Teltscher doesn't ask what 18th-century imperial envoy George Bogle might have thought of the newly opened Golmud-to-Lhasa railroad, a feat of Chinese engineering as impressive and controversial as the Three Gorges Dam. But truth is he might just have approved; the 26-year-old Scotsman did, after all, enter Tibet on a trade mission, sent in 1774 by the British governor of Bengal to talk turkey with the Panchen Lama, open Tibet to British goods and, just maybe, forge a new route into the still-elusive Chinese market.......Read this article
In China just about every foreigner with a backpack tries traveling over the Lunar New Year holiday at least once. Many organizations shut down for weeks - and so what better way to kill a few days than a leisurely train ride, leaving the harsh northern winter for the pleasant climes of the country's subtropical south? Very few try it twice.
In the days leading up to Spring Festival, China's rail network plays host to the largest voluntary migration in the world...
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Back in the 1930s they may have called Shanghai "the Paris of the East", but nobody was talking about fashion. It was more to do with a certain brand of joie de vivre - in particular, the city's notorious nightlife, its casinos and cabaret bars. "The cabarets are in three classifications," notes a popular English-language guidebook of the time. "High class, low class and no class. You take your choice.".......Read this article
Everything about the scene said small-town America. It was a bright winter day one week before Christmas and at Trinity United Methodist Church, a suitably dressed congregation had assembled to mourn the passing of much-loved local man Walter G Haut. Haut came to the town of Roswell (population 50,000) with the Army Air Force during the Second World War. The townfs slow pace and traditional sense of community had suited him so well he had stayed there for the next 60 years, working first as an insurance agent and later running an art gallery and frame shop in the centre of town.......Read this article
"Uncle Dashan! Uncle Dashan!" In a smart bookshop in Chongqing city, deep in the humid heart of Sichuan, boys in new sneakers and girls with ribbons in their hair clamour for attention from the most famous foreigner on Chinese TV. Toronto-born Mark Rowswell - or, as he is known to a fifth of the world's population, "Dashan" - does not disappoint, rewarding this group of his youngest fans with a beaming grin here, a self-deprecating quip there.......Read this article
Beijing, 1995. Behind the high walls of the city's Zhongnanhai government complex, chain-smoking nonagenarian Deng Xiaoping still rules over a population of 1.2 billion Chinese; 2000km to the south, the Union Jack still flutters over Hong Kong. But change is in the air. Cut to the Beijing Sheraton Hotel, where in a crowded luxury room, soon-to-be-famous Rachel DeWoskin is about to film her first love scene for Chinese TV. Lighting assistants and boom boys press around her as, perched on the edge of a luxurious king-sized bed, she flicks through her English-Chinese dictionary trying to work out what the director is telling her to do.......Read this article
By the end of this months all commercial poultry in Scotland must by law be recorded with the Great Britain Poultry Register, a necessary precaution in case of an outbreak of bird flu - big news for chicken farmers, though not on the face of it an event to provoke heated discussion in the staffrooms of the land.......Read this article
Two billion people are watching by live telecast, and American Miss World hopeful Nancy Randall is about to address the world in Chinese, a language notorious for its embarrassing pitfalls. "I love you, Sanya!" she says in Mandarin to the camera. "I love you, China!" The all-smiling anthropology graduate from Louisiana pulls it off. Around the auditorium, grey-suited party cadres break into applause, and the home crowd ripples with delight....... Read this article
On a rain-soaked night somewhere in the back streets of Glasgow, Chinese international footballer Du Wei is lost behind the wheel of his brand new car. Meanwhile, under the bright lights of "The Dragon Restaurant", word of the delay spreads among the invitation-only crowd, a group which includes business leaders, the city mayor and Madame Guo Guifang, Chinese Consul in Scotland.......Read this article
In the empty corridors of the museum now occupying the Shanghai of the First National Congress of the Communist Party, it is at first glance hard to believe official claims of 2,000 visitors a day. But then the buses pull up outside the main gate, decanting a hundred-strong tour group into the lobby, noisy and primed for the whistle-stop tour...... Read this article
Taking a deep breath, Zhang Di pushes open the door to the conference room high in the towering offices of Shanghai Tabloid the New Times. At first, she can see little beyond the building glare of the camera crews' lights, but as her eyes adjust, she becomes aware of the judges sitting behind a long desk....... Read this article
Merchant Ivory's latest film White Countess tells the story of a high-born Russian woman reduced to poverty and prostitution to support her family - refugees of the Bolshevik Revolution - in a Shanghai slum. Fraser Newham investigates the experience of the real White Russians of Shanghai and discovers this scenario to be close to the truth for many exiled Russian women......Read this article
At 59, the most powerful man in Hollywood has had so many hit movies that his name, not the director, is more often associated with the films. A few have received thumbs up from critics, "Black Hawk Down", "Pirates of the Caribbean", but most haven't, "Coyote Ugly" and "Kangaroo Jack" and "Pearl Harbor". As if the man cares....... Read this article
"In China today, cosmetic surgeons can change a face beyond recognition - and the police are going to have to take notice," a highly qualified Shanghai plastic surgeon told Asia Times Online. Before long, he expects, anyone who wants to significantly alter his or her appearance will first have to register with the police, lest wanted criminals evade capture by gaining a new face through surgery....... Read this article
"What did you do at school today Stephanie?" Mrs Smith asks her thirteen-year-old daughter. "Learnt stuff," the girl mumbles in reply. Mrs Smith flinches as the foot masseuse digs a knuckle into the soft underside of her foot. "Well, if you have homework, do it in your bedroom please," she says to her daughter. "The tailor is coming over this evening and we need to use the living room table."....... Read this article
This is a good time for Nanjing Road. While the Shanghai Centre has dominated the area for fifteen years, the champ now rubs shoulders with an impressive posse of fellow heavyweights. The Kerry Centre, CITIC Square and Plaza 66 offer similar combinations of international standard office space and swanky retail, and among them they now provide stable space to a who's who of upscale international brands from Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci and Salvatore Ferragamo to Cartier and Vacheron Constantin....... Read this article
Looking for an unusual option for an autumn break? What about kayaking in Japan's Seto Inland Sea? I took a course while traveling in Japan this summer ? It's a great way to enjoy nature, you escape the city smog, it's cheaper than you might think, and, weather-wise, this is just the right time of year.......Read this article
The earliest Chinese civilisation developed in several centres at once. One the north China plain, one group learnt to dig underground houses from the arid yellow soil and to grow millet. Further south, in a very different environment, others found that the waterlogged marshlands of the Yangtze delta were perfect for the cultivation of rice; they acquired woodworking skills, and in this wet environment learnt to build houses on stilts.......Read this article
At Pixar Studios they have an area which they call the Renderfarm. This is where movies like Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Finding Nemo are born. Animators have carefully choreographed scenes, virtual camera angles have been calculated, colour schemes and shading applied. The Renderfarm is where this data is crunched, and where it becomes a shot of film. A single frame can take at least six hours to crunch - the most complicated take up to ninety........ Read this article
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