Beside the sacred waters
November 2017
I love the odd, the outlandish and the outrageous sides of Japan, from cuddling a hedgehog at Harry’s Hedgehog Café to standing on the pedestrian bridge in Tokyo’s Harajuku district to watch the fashion show — of cosplayers, anime otaku, Decora girls, rockabilly dancers, roller skaters, Visual Kei fans and Lolitas. [...]

The Lasting Embrace
Spring 2017
Perhaps the most moving moment in Gurinder Chadha’s latest film is after it ends. Just before the credits begin to roll, a black-and-white photograph comes up on screen. It’s a picture of Chadha’s grandmother with her children – and the caption explains how she survived the Partition of India in 1947. [...]

China in your hand
August 20, 2016
With its far-reaching history and incalculable prospects, China is a must for anyone interested in past civilisations and the future of our world. It also contains three of the world’s greatest man-made sights: the Great Wall, the Forbidden City and the Terracotta Warriors. Yet it is tempting to cover too much ground, choosing a whirlwind tour of its 5,000-year history [...]

Rise and Shrine
December 2015
When I visited Cambodia 20 years ago, Siem Reap was a potholed backwater town teetering on the edge. There had been decades of fighting - internally with the Khmer Rouge, then with Vietnam - as well as political plots and coups. Millions had died. The living were weary. I was a young reporter for Newsweek magazine and Cambodia offered up a story with a bit of grit. [...]

Singapore Fling
Winter 2015-2016
For a half-century, Singapore has been a contrast of the colonial and cutting-edge. The former British colony is celebrating 50 years since independence, when it was ejected from the Federation of Malaysia amid social unrest. In March, its founding father Lee Kuan Yew passed away making 2015 especially momentous. [...]

Going With the Flow on the Mekong River
July 3, 2015
Kneeling down on the pavement in Luang Prabang, I rest my swing-basket of sticky rice, warm and damp, on my lap. At this early hour, the light is still colorless and the shadows long. In the distance, a procession of monks in glorious robes trails down from one of the city’s many gilded Buddhist temples. [...]

Tales of the Unexpected: Where China’s treasures lie
March 15, 2015
Curiously, one of the world’s greatest collections of Chinese antiquities is not in China – but across the Strait in Taiwan. In the early 20th century, the art collection of the Imperial Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, was on the move. It left Beijing and criss-crossed the country for nearly 20 years in an effort to spare it from the ravages of war [...]

Slow boat to Thailand’s temple cities
February 14, 2015
My guide Ling told me that when Thais come to Ayutthaya and Sukhothai , they aim to visit nine temples in one day. “The word nine sounds like the word for progress,” she said, “and they think a quick tour of nine temples might bring them more money.” [...]

Shanghai is full of surprises
January 16, 2015
The literal translation may sound banal — Shanghai means on the sea — but China’s booming port city is anything but ordinary.
Located halfway down China’s east coast, it’s a destination that once seduced Charlie Chaplin, Aldous Huxley and Noël Coward with its decadence, dance halls and smoky opium dens.[...]

Destinations for 2015: Plzen, Czech Republic
December 27, 2014
Why? Most visitors who come to the cobbled streets of this Czech city are here for the beer.
Home to the Pilsner Urquell brewery, Plzen delivers arguably the best brew in the world, a bottom-fermented lager using a methodology imitated worldwide, although the secret ingredients are said to be local hops and the town’s soft water.[...]

Monumental Ming
September 18, 2014
The British Museum has declared that a period of the Ming dynasty - the first half of the 15th century - was ’50 years that changed China’. There have been a number of transformative half-centuries in this country’s history (not least, the one we are in now) but this was certainly a golden age for trade, diplomacy and art [...]

Johannesburg
October 2014
City of dreams and 24-hour buzz. This is the NYC of the continent -- it’s modern, it’s ambitious, it rocks. Say hello to next-generation Africa. [...]

The Monthly Insider: Shanghai Surprises
August 2014
Glamorous Shanghai has reinstated its legendary position as the eastern metropolis of excess and extravagance, a city where Charlie Chaplin, Noël Coward and Aldous Huxley were once spotted in its elegant dance halls or opium dens. [...]

A cooking masterclass with Michel Roux
July 20, 2014
We are squatting on inch-high wooden stools under a tree on the bank of a brackish lagoon. As we chat, a train suddenly roars past a few feet behind us. The tracks had been disguised by undergrowth. We both wince; we clearly have not chosen the perfect location for a picnic. [...]

Hong Kong art: a new creative star rises in the east
April 19, 2014
In the heart of Hong Kong’s SoHo district, one of the city’s hottest pieces of real estate is not being turned into a bank or block of apartments. Instead, the former Police Married Quarters, renamed PMQ, is becoming a hub of design studios, ateliers and pop-ups. [...]

Tales of the Unexpected: Qatar
January 10, 2014
When driving through the heat-scorched desert in the Gulf state of Qatar, you do not expect to come across a fairy-tale fortress containing a collection of gleaming vintage vehicles including a Dodge C100, a Chevrolet Impala and a Rolls-Royce Silver Wraith II. [...]

Cambodia: Temple City -- fit for the gods
September 27, 2013
More than a million tourists a year visit Cambodia's greatest attraction, but it's still possible to see the temples minus crowds. Angkor Wat is Cambodia's most beloved and best preserved temple and masterpiece. The 202ha site is one of the largest religious monuments in the world and represents the architectural pinnacle of the Khmer Empire. [...]

Hanoi cuisine retains its French flavour
March 5, 2010
I curled my fingers around a cup of gritty black coffee and watched a group of students sitting along the pavement on plastic stools. In the midst of their huddle was a steaming pan of freshwater snails. [...]

Taiwan’s remarkable national museum
November 20, 2009
On a cold, blustery day in December 1948, 10-year-old Chuang Ling boarded a Chinese warship in the port of Nanjing, one of hundreds of refugees who spent the next five days on rough seas until they reached the port of Keelung in northern Taiwan. [...]

Easter Island : the future's not set in stone
January 26, 2008
As the first luxury hotel opens on Easter Island, Michelle Jana Chan reports from a location that's not as isolated as it was. I wondered if the pilot sighed with relief as the wedge of land emerged on the horizon. [...]

The march of Xi'an's Terracotta Army
September 1, 2007
As the British Museum prepares its 'First Emperor' exhibition, Michelle Jana Chan recommends a visit to Xi'an, the city that inspired it. The Chinese army is invading London. On September 13, the British Museum will be opening its doors on a much-vaunted exhibition [...]

Lost worlds become virtual heritage
May 8, 2007
LONDON, England -- Six of the seven Ancient Wonders of the World have vanished into history, like the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which crumbled into the sea after an earthquake, and the Statue of Zeus, destroyed by fire thousands of years ago. [...]

Who Wants To Be A Pop Star ?
March 22, 2001
For Anybody Who Thought That Making It In Showbiz Took Talent And Hard Work, Here's How Britain's Latest Hit Band Rose To Fame Overnight success stories just aren't what they used to be. Take Hear'Say, the British band that is currently No. 1 in the country's charts. [...]

Off The Wall ?
March 7, 2001
Meet The New Michael Jackson. The Wacky Star Is Now The World's Latest-And Perhaps Most Unlikely-Spokesman On Family Values. Michael Jackson is calling himself the icon of a generation-a generation, he says, that "no longer knows what it means to be a child". [...]