It sounds hard to believe, but civil service applicants in China had to write actual literature to win top jobs, becoming "jinshi" - a class of writer-administrators who advised the emperor. (Business people were ranked low on the ladder.) For centuries, it worked well - but at other times, the bureaucratic need for order and…
GETTING ON A DOUBLE-DECKER in Central and grabbing a seat upstairs, you can head to Repulse Bay in the southern part of Hong Kong Island. This district, one of the most expensive residential areas in the world, is reached by a 30-minute picturesque ride with great scenery of mountains and seas along the road. Embraced…
Shopkeepers in China 900 years ago accidentally created restaurant food culture, and their achievement is listed among Life magazine's 100 greatest achievements of the past millennium. Emily Zhou reports
IN OR ABOUT THE YEAR 1120 AD, a shopkeeper in the old Chinese city of Kaifeng had an idea. There were lots of merchants arriving from…
ONE DAY, CONFUCIUS asked four of his students to tell him about the greatest thing they would like to achieve.
“I’d like to help rule a troubled land and bring peace to it,” said one.
“I’d like to govern a poor place and raise it to prosperity,” said another.
The third was a humbler young…
MORE THAN TWO millennia ago, a young man and his sister decided to go a scenic spot called the West Lake for a picnic. But then it began to rain heavily. The pair, along with other sightseers, hurried to find shelter at nearby pavilions.
From there, they found out that they could look out at…
CHINA BUILT A TRAIN track as big as a country—and they did much of it on shifting sands. The new Xinjiang railway loops around the huge Taklamakan desert, a patch of sand so large it could swallow the countries of the United Kingdom plus the whole of Ireland.
It wasn’t just the size of the…
The world's media reported that at exactly midnight on 30 June 1997, the British Hong Kong flag was replaced with China’s flag as the sovereignty of Hong Kong moved from British colonial rule to Chinese rule. But that’s not actually what happened. Emily Zhou reports.
IN THE WINTER of 1994, 925 days before July 1,…
IN THE EARLY 1700s, the ruling emperor of China had a curious request: “Bring me a westerner!”
Although Chinese painting had been through hundreds of years of evolution, the Kangxi Emperor was intrigued by western art, which had a notably different style. The message was sent out by members of the Jesuit community in China…
PRINCE YIREN OF QIN had a horrible job. He was a hostage. He had been assigned to that role by his own parents.
That may sound strange, but that was often the case in China during the Warring States period, more than 2,200 years ago. The young man was a member of the royal family…
A SURPRISE HIT movie in China tells the true story of the first man who decided to try making a TV advertisement in that country, more than 40 years ago. It may sound like a trivial thing, but in another way it was huge – his success or failure would signify the transition of China…