A brief history of travel in China and the challenges of inhospitality.
Chungking: China’s heart of darkness
Out of the squalor and into the light: When the Shanghai wall came down
Glimmers of Shanghai’s modernity in a 19th-century courtesan novel.
The breasts of Bali: An update
Things are grim on the ground but the tradition lives on in pictures.
Confucius and opium
An investigation of intoxicants in the time of Confucius.
Multilingualism and the time travel novel
Writers who play carelessly with time may leave the language in tatters.
American fascism: The sexual rage of the state
The U.S. sexual surveillance state horror.
The expat and the prostitute: Four classic novels, 1956–62
Reviews of McKenna’s The Sand Pebbles, Mason’s The World of Suzie Wong, Arsan’s Emmanuelle, and Reynolds’ A Woman from Bangkok.
