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Recent Posts
- Video: Solving the Mystery of Easter Island
- “Sovietistan” and “The Border” by Erika Fatland
- A Postcard from Arequipa
- A Postcard from Shiraz
- A Postcard from …
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Category Archives: China
“Sovietistan” and “The Border” by Erika Fatland
Hier gibt es diese Rezension auf Deutsch. Do you also have so many travel guides at home for countries you never made it to? I still got a Lonely Planet guidebook for Central Asia, which I bought in 2007. Apparently, … Continue reading
Posted in Abkhazia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Books, China, Estonia, Georgia, Latvia, Lithuania, North Korea, Norway, Poland, Ukraine
Tagged Finland, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, MacLehose, Mongolia, Pegasus, Soviet Union, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan
11 Comments
For my Chinese readers
Writing a blog for an international audience is very complicated. People in California are never awake when I write in Europe. People in Australia and Argentina are reading it upside down. And in China, when you want to access my … Continue reading
A Chinese in Vienna
During some meeting of some committee of some sub-organization at the United Nations in Vienna, I got to know a young lady from China. Qian was doing an internship as a simultaneous interpreter for Mandarin and English. Simultaneous interpreters are … Continue reading
Random Thoughts (14)
If I am ever on a quiz show, my telephone joker will be the dude who wrote Wikipedia. Suki Kim has done impressive undercover reporting in North Korea, fooling both her employer, by pretending that she was a devout Christian, and of course the … Continue reading
Posted in Bolivia, Books, China, Colombia, Economics, Health, Language, Life, Mexico, North Korea, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Technology, Travel, UK
Tagged children, christianity, journalism, Spanish, wikipedia
19 Comments
How far can you get by train?
Zur deutschen Fassung dieses Artikels. One of my readers wrote that he had been wondering how far he could get if he took his local commuter train and continued traveling with no other means of transport than the railway. As a train enthusiast, … Continue reading
Smoking against Mosquitoes
Whenever I walk through a mosquito- or fly-infested forest or swamp, I light up a cigar. A strong one preferably. It keeps these rowdy little animals at bay. Now I am happy to have discovered that this is no excuse … Continue reading
The Revolutions of 1989
1989, those were the times! With each broadcast of the evening news, the world changed so quickly that most people already lost track back then. Now, 25 years later, only a vague recollection of falling walls, fired shots and popping champagne … Continue reading
Nobel Peace Prize 2014 for Liu Xiaobo
My suggestion for the Nobel Peace Prize 2014: Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese writer and human rights activist. Yes, I know that Liu Xiaobo already won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 and it would be the first time that one person … Continue reading
“1493” by Charles C. Mann
1493 refers to the year after Christopher Columbus “discovered” America and as the second part of the title suggests, the book describes how Europe’s discovery of the Americas revolutionized trade, ecology and life on earth. That sounds like an enormous … Continue reading
When to Smoke (and when not to)
Around 1774, the former Chinese provincial governor Lu Yao provided a set of smoking rules in his book Yan Pu (Smoking Manual). In great detail he addressed the question of when to smoke (and when not to): Do smoke: after … Continue reading
