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ChinaPhoto
A vast country, an unfathomable number of people and a great many photographs would explain why it’s taken as long as it has to review, edit and publish them all in one place – but have a look at my new site, ChinaPhoto and I hope you’ll agree it’s been worth the effort! In […]
Golden Week
February 7, 2013
Knowing when to get away for the bank holiday has always been a matter for discussion in the UK – leave on the Friday night and risk the traffic? Take a half day? Or go on the Saturday. In China, it’s on an altogether different scale. Golden Week at the start of October saw something […]
Can I sue David Cameron?
January 25, 2013
I like democracy. Having lived in China for a year I have a new found appreciation for it (though I’m certainly not in the “democracy or nothing” camp.) But part of that appreciation is the understanding that democracy has moved on. We no longer expect all adult male citizens to attend meetings in the agora […]
Ho Chi Minh City
December 24, 2012
Vietnam is catching up. They’re taking on China in low-cost manufacturing and have clear ambitions of their own. But there’s still a charm about Saigon that has already gone from much of urban China – starting with an airport that feels as though the troops have only just moved out. Everywhere you turn buildings that […]
Hanging Temple
December 21, 2012
An hour or so from Datong, through dusty villages, where houses are still built of mud and donkeys draw carts laden with melons, is a temple that has clung to the side of a mountain for more than 1,500 years. Unsurprisingly, it’s known as the hanging temple… Now, I’m not much of a one for […]
Yungang Grottoes – in pictures
December 18, 2012
UNESCO has a decent track record in choosing places worth seeing, and we headed off to one of their World Heritage sites, the Yungang Grottoes, first thing in the morning, hoping to be able to see these and The Hanging Temple in the same day, which is easily done from Datong. Started in the 5th […]
Datong – Shanxi Province
December 15, 2012
Datong is a gritty kind of town. It’s coal country – and arriving at the station in the dead of night did nothing to change our opinion that catching a train from Hohhot in Inner Mongolia into Datong was something of a risk. Not least because there are several stations called Datong and China’s paranoia […]
Xilamuren – the Inner Mongolia Plains
December 12, 2012
A couple of hours’ drive north from Hohhot lie the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. Nomadic horsemen still ply their trade, but it’s now more for the Han tourist than to make ends meet. It is a shame that catering to the new affluent of China is in danger of homogenising the tourist experience, even in […]
Hohhot – images of Inner Mongolia
December 9, 2012
China may be a single entity, but it has a great variety of people and peoples within its vast borders. Alongside the 22 provinces (23 if you count Taiwan), there is a spattering of Special Economic Zones (2), 4 Municipalities and 5 Autonomous Regions. It’s often these latter that court controversy as the people of […]
Terracotta Warriors
December 6, 2012
I remember going Christmas shopping once with my sister and, as we walked through the John Lewis kitchen department, no doubt in search of some delightful present for some lucky family member, it dawned on me that I could plot a path through the shelves in such a way as to arrive quite suddenly in […]
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An Unweeded Garden 
April 4, 2014
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