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Culture

Would you snack on a snake?

I HAVE TO START BY saying that not every Chinese person has eaten snake-related dishes. In fact, I had never thought that snakes could be eaten until I read about it in a novel while I was in middle school. I was so astonished that I even re-checked the Chinese character “蛇” (“snake” in Chinese)…

October 11, 20220Comments ByEmily Zhou

Chinese history Hong Kong News

The forgotten ‘bromance’ between communists and colonials

Hong Kong became host to an extraordinary Communist school in the 1940s The British asked Communists to work as the police in the New Territories A Hong Kong war hero got an MBE before being killed by a Taiwanese bomb ONE OF THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY episodes in modern history was a “bromance” between British colonial…

October 11, 20220Comments ByH.C. Lu

Chinese history Culture

The mystery Hong Kong tea trader who helped win a war

THE TEA TRADER had no tea leaves to buy or sell. But he didn’t mind. Young merchant Liao had far more serious matters on his mind. In January of 1938, he'd opened a tea import-export business called the Yuehua Company (粵華公司) at 18, Queen’s Road in Victoria, the main city and central business district of…

October 6, 20220Comments ByFriday Writers

Chinese history Culture Hong Kong News

The strange tale of the King of Lantau Island

The last Emperor of the Southern Song was a fleeing young royal family member who lived in the Hong Kong town of Mui Wo on Lantau island. He’s been long forgotten now, but the opening of a new metro station named after a monument to him and his brother has revived interest in his astounding…

October 4, 20220Comments ByFriday Writers

Culture

Imagine a land run by. . . poets

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…

September 16, 20220Comments ByEmily Zhou

Culture

China’s equivalent to the ‘Alphabet Song’ is a 1,000-character masterpiece

An ancient poem has been used for 15 centuries to teach Chinese children to read and write. H.C. Lu reports LITERALLY BILLIONS OF PEOPLE worldwide have learned the Alphabet Song, in which the 26 letters of the alphabet are memorized by being rather awkwardly fitted to a French melody from the 1700s. But few people…

August 30, 20220Comments ByH.C. Lu

Culture

The world’s first restaurant and earliest celebrity chef

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…

August 11, 20220Comments ByEmily Zhou

Culture

A student told Confucius the most important thing in life

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…

August 9, 20220Comments ByEmily Zhou

Culture

Rain spoiled their picnic: so he invented the umbrella

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…

July 27, 20220Comments ByEmily Zhou

Culture

Tang Clan arrived in Hong Kong long before the British

HONG KONG HAS a fascinating history behind its futuristic cityscape. And much of the history dates back centuries before the British era. Yuen Long’s Ping Shan is one of the most historically significant places in Hong Kong – and there's a heritage trail where visitors can marvel in a cluster of well-preserved …

July 26, 20220Comments ByH.C. Lu

Culture

Would you snack on a snake?

The forgotten ‘bromance’ between communists and colonials

The mystery Hong Kong tea trader who helped win a war

The strange tale of the King of Lantau Island

Imagine a land run by. . . poets

China’s equivalent to the ‘Alphabet Song’ is a 1,000-character masterpiece

The world’s first restaurant and earliest celebrity chef

A student told Confucius the most important thing in life

Rain spoiled their picnic: so he invented the umbrella

Tang Clan arrived in Hong Kong long before the British

Starmer meets Xi today, hopes to rebuild UK’s relationship

Treasures from 800-year-old sunken vessel exhibited in Hong Kong

At the Great Wall, I learned how the Chinese dealt with their enemies