Shanghai Noir

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Illustration of a bird flying.
  • Writing on the Road

    On the road sounds mythic, doesn’t it? Think about Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation. Or, if you’ve been binge-watching old movies these days, you’ll know all about Bing Crosby and Bob Hope on the road to some place exotic. Writing while on the road is a whole other ball of wax. Could I do…

    April 5, 2020
  • Quiet

    The dust falls from our travel boots. Laundry slouches in uncertain heaps. After 7 months on the road, the curious monkey returns to Amsterdam. Everything is the same. Nothing is the same. We’ve come home in a time of coronavirus. It’s so quiet here. The freeway doesn’t hum. The birds no longer compete with the…

    March 29, 2020
  • Colonial Offenses

    Tasmania is an island off the shore of mainland Australia. Only 550,000 hardy souls live on this land mass the size of Switzerland. Mountains, forests, and cold swift waterways render much of the terrain impassable. The perfect place for a penal colony. From 1803 to 1853, that’s exactly what it was. The British Empire transported…

    March 8, 2020
  • Plastic Planet

    Plastic is not the first word you’d associate with New Zealand. You think instead of the mountains, the rivers and lakes, the astonishing coastline. And yet plastic is on my mind as we travel through the South Island of this astonishingly beautiful country. During a whale watching expedition, I hear about plastic bottles lodged in…

    February 14, 2020
  • Isolation

    I’m writing to you from the isolation ward of Auckland City Hospital. My husband Frans has pneumonia. No worries: he’s healing though it’s taking time. First, get the fever down, rehydrate the body, and find the nasty bug that’s causing all the trouble. Then, match the bug to the right silver bullet. Finally, wait for…

    January 28, 2020
  • On Island

    Our plane has just landed in Kauai when the message arrives. The owner of our holiday rental won’t be there to greet us. She’s off island but not to worry. She has plenty of local contacts in case of an emergency and we can always reach her if we keep in mind the time difference.…

    January 15, 2020
  • Los Angeles

    When I tell people about our round-the-world itinerary, there are always oohs and aah’s for the far flung destinations like Angkor Wat in Cambodia or Gwangju, South Korea. Los Angeles doesn’t fit in that lineup. I was, after all, born and raised in the City of Angels. La La Land, Lotusville, Shaky Town, El Pueblo.…

    December 25, 2019
  • Kyoto Craft

    There’s something about Kyoto that pleases me. There are grand castles and breathtaking gardens. The people are kind and the food is great. There are more places in Japan like that but Kyoto is special. The lamp glow is soft, the paper screens crisp, the incense seductive. It can’t all be a coincidence. I suspect…

    December 9, 2019
  • Country Life

    The first time I went to Japan, I was 10 years old. We were on our way to visit my maternal grandfather in Taiwan, stopping for 3 days in Tokyo. I remember a hotel high in the clouds and a city more modern than LA far below. This is my fourth visit to Japan and…

    November 18, 2019
  • On the Condiment Ledge

    Every self-respecting Korean cook has a condiment ledge. Any sunny place will do: in the garden, a parking lot or on your roof. On that ledge, you keep your onggi. These earthenware jars are made from clay fired at 1200 degrees, which allows the jar to breathe. Onggi earthenware makes the best container for traditional…

    November 4, 2019
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