In Beijing this past November, my creative writing class read Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. It’s a play about family abandonment, the interactions and spoiled dreams of an American mother and two children trying to survive the Great Depression. My Chinese students relished acting in this play. The girls, especially, enjoyed the central character, Amanda… Read More
February 17 — Shanghai Bund. My 33 year old friend Wang Qian is one of the best feasts of human nature that I have encountered in China. Call that a mixed metaphor. But it’s true. I ran into her at the Bookworm Book store in Beijing last September during a lecture on the… Read More
Bin Ma Yong, a Terra Cotta Warrior, Tomb #3. Photo by Arielle Emmett (c) Arielle Emmett *No photos or text reproduced without permission. In Xian yesterday I made a clean sweep of all the Han and Qin Dynasty tombs. Hadn’t been there for 17 years, and all I remember were dusty roads and the army of terra… Read More
On the outskirts of Lijiang, Yunnan Province, Wu Ka Meng “reads” the Naxi pictographs outside Da Baoji temple May 31, 2012, Kunming, Yunnan Province, China: When we boarded the Chinese train known as the “hard sleeper” bound for Lijiang, China, just southeast of Tibet, Mrs. Huang Yi Yun hoisted her petite frame on top… Read More