So, I just bought a return flight from London Heathrow to Boston (Massachusetts, not Lincolnshire, cheap short haul flights haven’t got that crazy yet!), leaving the day after tomorrow. This cost a mere £308, which is very cheap. Today is the day the Stern Review came out, which means it was impossible to do anything […]
For three years now I’ve subscribed irregularly to a box of fruit and vegetables from Cambridge Organic Food Co. On Sunday or Monday, If I’m going to be at home enough later in the week, I leave them an answer phone message. Then on Wednesday afternoon there’s a knock on the door, and a friendly […]
I have a rule, implied in the text at the top of this page, not just to post links to other stories and websites in this blog. But these crazy American artists are too much fun not to. “This summer we are building rafts and floating down the Mississippi River. Here’s the plan: We meet […]
China has a new great wall, which blocks parts of the Internet from its citizens. This is partly done by absolute blocks, for example banning the BBC because it has a Chinese language news site. But it is also done by more subtle means – letting the companies who run forums know that they might […]
(For background, read my posts Chinese family history and Child of the atom bomb first) In Shanghai, Rosemary and I went to a few more places related to our family history. Shanghai has undergone massive development, knocking down of whole areas, building of new skyscrapers. Amazingly, everywhere we went was still there. A hundred year […]
(Just to explain, I’ve been back from China for a couple of weeks now, but still have blog posts to make about it, which I’m gradually catching up on) When we were in Chengdu we went on a trip a couple of hours south to Emei Shan. This is where the religious thread of the […]
Even though I’m an atheist, it’s fun and moving to seek out pious people and watching them going about their business. A few years ago I used to do this in the UK via Cambridge Interfaith, who organised such things as a visit to the synagogue on a Friday evening, and a day trip to […]
Tibetan sky burials sound very odd, exotic, macabre. After being shown a sky burial ground by a native who takes part in them, my mind began to twist round and see them as normal. Just as many Tibetans do – I don’t know figures, but it is widespread. A sky burial goes like this. The […]
On the bus from Zoige to Langmusi, I met a girl who for all the world looked Han Chinese, but turned out to be Tibetan. She had reasonable English, and was well turned out in the fashionable way that city Chinese are. She was an accountant in a government-run Tibetan medicine hospital in Zoige, on […]
Everywhere in the People’s Republic of China there is building. In Shanghai, deep foundations of new skyscrapers. In Songpan, new apartments paid for by the government to relocate people from slumy areas. And north of Songpan, a newly upgraded highway across into Gansu province. The only problem is, it isn’t finished yet. The bus left […]