The line of disappointed Burmese wandered down the dirt road from the polling station to the betel-nut shack. Perhaps a hit of the addictive chew would soothe their nerves. On April 1, Burmese went to the voting booths for just …
The Burmese campaign irregularity was round, hard and launched from a slingshot. In March, an unknown assailant fired a betel nut at an opposition party candidate for the April 1 by-elections, nearly causing an injury. The …
At the campaign rally on the outskirts of Rangoon, Burma’s largest city, much appeared as it should be. A sweaty crowd, thousands strong, dutifully waved green-and-red party flags; many sported baseball caps with the Union …
March 27 was Armed Forces Day in Burma, the 67th anniversary of the founding of the modern Burmese military. Given that Burma was ruled for nearly half a century by a military regime and even today is helmed by a hybrid …
They waited for hours in the merciless Burmese sun for their Lady to arrive. On March 22, Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi traveled in an unlikely convoy of shiny Land Rovers, ancient Jeeps, tractors, motorcycles, trishaws …
The senior official from Chongqing, China’s largest city, suddenly looked uneasy. It was last summer, and I had just asked him about “red culture,” the drive by Bo Xilai, Chongqing’s now disgraced party boss, to instill …
Marking the first anniversary of the March 11 Japanese tsunami tragedy, the Global Times, a Beijing-based daily with links to the Chinese Communist Party, published an editorial on Sino-Japanese relations. The thrust was this: …
It’s known as National Uprising Day to the Tibetans: on March 10, 1959, Tibetans, who had watched Chinese People’s Liberation Army troops march in less than a decade before, rebelled against communist rule on the high …
Enter a Beijing eyeglasses shop, and you’ll invariably see a special case filled with thick, oversize spectacles. Salespeople refer to them as lingdao (leaders) glasses. They are considered the preferred style of China’s …
Last month, when officials in the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing announced that Wang Lijun, the former police chief and close aide to political heavyweight Bo Xilai, was undergoing “vacation-style treatment,” pretty …
He received a 19-gun salute at the Pentagon, toured the Port of Los Angeles and took tea in Muscatine, Iowa. On Friday, Feb. 17, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping will wrap up his five-day trip to the U.S., his first visit since …
Just type the letters L and I on Baidu, and China’s top search engine sends out an automatic prompt: do you mean Lin Shuhao, the Taiwanese-American basketball breakout phenom whose English name is Jeremy Lin? (The California …
In January, China’s Vice President Xi Jinping helmed a commemoration of the 40thanniversary of U.S. President Richard Nixon’s landmark trip to China. Nixon’s visit ended with the triumphant issuing on Feb. 28, 1972 of the …
