No Asian culture is more steeped in the rituals and power of magic as Indonesia. In his debut novel, Indonesian-born author Erick Setiawan presents a bewitching but modern fantasy world in which two feuding families live in horribly haunted houses full of spirits and spells. Yet their lives are ruled by universal values — love, desire, loss and pain — firmly rooted in human emotions.
Who Flu Over Cuckoo’s Nest?
Every few decades, a flu pandemic spreads westward from Asia. The last one, in 1968, was relatively mild - and we have yet to see the full damage caused by the swine flu outbreak. But the next pandemic is inevitable - and it’s likely to come from China.
India Shining?
What does Louisiana’s Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, have in common with the Democratic U.S. Surgeon General-designate Sanjay Gupta? They’re both Americans of Indian descent.
Tiananmen Square Lessons
The Tiananmen Square crackdown of June 4, 1989 was a defining moment in Chinese history, widely interpreted as a sign of China’s impending doom. It has proven to be anything but.
Tibetan Blunder
Tibetans and their supporters worldwide have taken to the streets in record numbers lately to protest human rights abuses in China and the 58-year-old Chinese occupation of Tibet. Over the years, a lot of things have stood between Beijing’s dictatorial rule and Tibet’s freedom — but you’d never guess the most formidable barrier: The Dalai Lama himself.
China Syndrome
Tibet has been a thorn in China’s side ever since Mao Zedong’s People’s Liberation Army invaded the Roof of the World in 1950. The recent unrest in Lhasa resulted in a Chinese crackdown that has effectively transformed the Beijing Olympics into what some are calling the “Human Rights Games.”
Bound-Foot in China
In a remote village in southwestern China live 300 women whose feet were crushed long ago to the size of a child’s. They are the last survivors haunted by a mutilating tradition that lasted a millennium — solely for men’s pleasure.
Shanghai Malls
Forget Beijing and the 2008 Olympics. As Shanghai goes, so goes the rest of China. After she graduated from Stanford University this past spring, Katie Salisbury spent nine weeks in China’s most industrial and cosmopolitan city, studying its shopping malls and the people who inhabit them. For Salisbury, it was a fascinating, if somewhat pricey, experience.
