People’s Republic of China (PRC)
I landed in Beijing on January 29th, 2007 on my first trip to Asia at the ripe age of 22. I’d been sent on a project for work with little more than a weeks notice. Despite being weary from the flight, I vividly remember the ride from the airport. Everything was covered with a thin layer of dust, the air dry and thick with the haze of pollution. Read more
Almost exactly 10 years after I first arrived in Beijing in 2007 I found myself back there in March 2017. As has sadly become the norm, the city was shrouded in a thick blanket of smog so we decided to head out of the city for the weekend for a hike in the mountains.
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In Hong Kong, public housing has been one of the major government policies since the 1950’s – about 30 percent of the city’s 7.8 million population currently lives in one of these affordable apartments. Read more
In the 1950’s Hong Kong had a problem – facing a surge of immigration from Mainland China it didn’t have enough affordable housing stock. In 1953 the problems were compounded when a fire burned down a large slum area in Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon, leaving thousands homeless. Read more
As long-term readers will know I have a bit of an obsession about the neon signage which gives many cities in Asia their unique and seductive streetscapes. The epitome of this has to be Hong Kong where the dense and chaotic texture of its neon have brought the city to life at night since the 1950s. Read more
Yesterday I entered China for the first time without a visa. Considering all the time and money I’ve spent in the past applying for them this was quite a revolution. Read more