“Preparing for the Twinkpocalypse.” Recently it seems that any little thing might be a sign of The End of Days. We have endured the threat of an avian flu apocalypse and an unrelated, but unnerving bird apocalypse. There have been snopocalypses, a few snomageddons, or stormageddons. Fears of swine flu inspired Pork-pocalypse. On the horizon there are various immanent economic apocalypses. It seems … Continue reading
I have always been impressed with the charm of the Chinese youtiao (油条). I find poetry in the simplicity of taking a strip of dough, plopping it in a wok of hot oil and frying it to a golden brown. No spices, no salt, no sugar. No fuss. Just hot oil and dough doing their thing. … Continue reading
Ten years ago this month I finished my PhD dissertation, “Remembering Red: Memory and Nostalgia for the Cultural Revolution in Late 1990s China,” in the anthropology department at the University of Washington in Seattle. My dissertation research examined nostalgia and memory of the Cultural Revolution among members of the generation who were most active in … Continue reading
I don’t sleep well on long airplane flights. I usually stay awake through the whole thing and keep myself busy by reading, writing, watching movies and thinking. After twelve hours in the air I usually get pretty antsy and a bit punchy from lack of sleep. Often in my head I replay parts of Louis … Continue reading
While walking in some of the back streets of Nanjing just days before the Duanwu Festival I came upon a woman preparing zongzi for sale. I have eaten the bamboo leaf-wrapped rice many times over the past two decades, but until then had never seen how they were made. I was fascinated by how the … Continue reading
Sometimes mystery objects can be right in front of my face—camouflaged by their ubiquity. All it takes is just the right moment, when my guard is down and then suddenly I see them for what they really are. This is definitely what happened last week when I came upon this amazing object. I had been … Continue reading
For years I have adored hand-pulled Chinese noodles–how water and flour and a little magic in the hands of a master can become a tasty food. Many years ago a student of mine and I even went so far as to “intern” for a few months at a noodle shop in Beijing. Last weekend in … Continue reading
