1,500 kilometers by bike through the heart of Southeast Asia text and photos

by Scott Browning

Sitting in gravel and dirt by the side of a lonely highway somewhere in rural Laos, trying unsuccessfully to fix a rusty, jammed brake cable, I began questioning the motivations which led me ... Read more »

Midi Madness

Is it possible we’re better off postponing?

Everyone knows China’s best outdoor rock concert was unexpectedly canceled last month amid security concerns. Aside from a hundred thousand disappointed rock fans, maybe postponement isn’t such a bad thing. Consider that Midi’s scheduled opening date coincided ... Read more »

Svein O. Saether

Vikings Among Us

The Norwegian ambassador leads a delegation to the Marco Polo Parkside Hotel to kick off China-Norway Friendship Month. Throughout the month of May, Marco Polo goes Scandinavian with a major food festival and a cocktail party in honor of Norway’s Constitution Day. Best ... Read more »

June 8 | Hong Kong

Dragon Boat Festival

Who needs the Olympics when you have the frothing, on-the-water action of dragon boat racing? This venerable holiday was a popular celebration in the Chinese countryside, coincident with the onset of summer. These days, Hong Kong is the place to go to experience ... Read more »

Moms and dads, take note: CW runs down China’s best amusement parks.

by Sienna Parulis-Cook

Guangzhou

Chime Long Paradise

For thrills and spills there’s no better place in China than the Chime Long Paradise. The park has 60 facilities spread over six themed zones. The best is the ... Read more »

Author: Lloyd Lofthouse

Robert Hart is not the most famous foreigner ever to live in China. That honor either goes to Dashan, the Canadian comic, or Mateo Ricci, the 16th century Jesuit missionary who was one of the first Westerners to translate Confucius. Nevertheless, of them all, Hart, who is ... Read more »

Author: Pun Ngai

If you’ve ever stared at the “Made in China” stamp on your gadgets and wondered who actually makes them, Pun Ngai has the answer. Ngai, now an assistant professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, spent eight months in a Shenzhen electronics factory ... Read more »

Movies

The Forbidden Kingdom

Thinly realized, yet entertaining and funny, it’s the story of an American kid who, by way of a generic Hollywood premise, winds up in a kind of mythical Buddhist/Shaolin heaven where he has to help Jackie Chan save Sun Wukong (a blond Jet Li ... Read more »

http://www.iconflict.com

As the same implies, this blog is an EKG for political conflict across the globe. From Mugabe’s slipping grasp on power in Zimbabwe to the trail of China rallies which have followed the Olympic torch around the globe, the site charts all the happy hilarity ... Read more »

FOR TRAVELERSYouTube to Go

The Archos 605 media player not only comes with 160 gigs to store all your movies and music, but also built-in Wi-Fi capabilities so you can stream media straight off the internet. With a four inch screen and a weight of 9.17 ounces, you ... Read more »

The web is the new Munich beer hall

Ever since my closest contacts opened Gmail accounts, I’ve left MSN Instant Messenger to wither on the vine. Nothing against it, but with both messengers going at once and Facebook chat on the rise, I found myself mired in time-waste. This ... Read more »

Autumn in Mongolia varies from cold to extremely cold. So I’m huddled in four layers of clothing, sitting next to a roaring fire. Adam, a good friend from college days, sits across the fire pit. Steps from our tent is the Eggin River.

“If you could eat anything right ... Read more »

6.99 Is the Magic NumberFall of the U.S. dollar makes expat packages look not so golden

The RMB broke through the magical seven barrier in April, spawning radio call in shows all over China and hand-wringing among expats on U.S. dollar salaries. For 10 years the ... Read more »

Michael Learns to RockStill Learning to Rock

The selection of official Olympic songs has become an international campaign with complete has-beens and never-will-bes coming out of the woodwork to make their case. Danish band Michael Learns To Rock wrote a song “One World, One Dream” and they flew to ... Read more »

ART HK 08

May 14-18 | Hong Kong

For five days, the world’s leading galleries and top collectors will descend on Hong Kong for the city’s first ever large-scale art fair. Expect over a hundred galleries from 20 countries to represent, slinging everything from Picasso and Andy Warhol to ... Read more »

CW goes south in search of the pearl of the Pearl River Delta. by Jane Ram

Shenzhen

Southern Charm

Shenzhen is much more than what it is usually touted as—the epitome of the Chinese economic miracle. This dynamic city comes close to being all things to all travelers, offering ... Read more »

Author: Jiang Rong

Penned by Lu Jiamin under the pseudonym Jiang Rong, Wolf Totem is a semi-autobiographical work about the experiences of a bookish Beijing student during an 11-year sojourn in Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution. At times more a series of ethnological meditations than a novel, it caused ... Read more »

MOVIESIn Bruges

After a hit gone wrong, Irish hitmen (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) are ordered to lay-low and play tourist in a sleepy Flemish town. With Gleeson's mature calm offset by Farrell's youthful apathy, what we have is an intriguing, unpredictable, crime comedy.

The Hammer

The ... Read more »

The name may sound tediously academic, but this film blog is anything but. Launched in March by a group of guys who spend way too much time digging the Chinese cinema scene, the Journal reviews films, previews projects and generally rounds up the gossip from an informed perspective. Read more »

FOR IPOD FANSSecond Skin

What’s cooler than a video iPod? One wrapped in a Van Gogh painting. That’s just one of the cool designs for the new iPod GelaSkin. Aside from being artsy, they do wonders protecting your iPod and the screen from nasty scratches. US$20 ... Read more »

Making caffeine shakes and scoliosis worth it

In April, the New York Times published a story on the stresses, even dangers, of blogging. The issues weren’t of censorship or confidentiality, but of health. “[Bloggers] work long hours, often to exhaustion,” Matt Richtel wrote, “Many are paid by the piece-not ... Read more »

Mausoleums in Uzbekistan

text and photos by Matthew Niederhauser

Central Asia is a puzzling jigsaw of borders, deserts and inland seas with an equally heterogeneous past. Starting with Alexander the Great in 330 B.C., the region fell victim to a ceaseless tide of invaders including the Huns, Turks, Mongols ... Read more »

George H.W. Bush, Sr.

George and Bar

Former U.S. president George Bush, Sr. was in Beijing in March along with wife Barbara. George, who is looking pretty swell for being 84 years old, is acting as the honorary president of the U.S. delegation to the Olympics this ... Read more »