I've been in China for less than two weeks now, and it's really getting to me. I've known many Chinese people over the course of my life. Some Chinese by nationality and some only by extraction. Some of them are two, three or more generations removed from China, and some…

At the empty heart of Beijing is Tiananmen Square, that lacuna of bloody memory. Facing it across a torrent of traffic are the intimidating banner-draped stone walls of the Forbidden City. These twin themes of wide emptiness and dense, closed-off spaces are repeated through the city. Narrow, secretive alleyways called…

Our biggest challenge in Shanghai was trying to get out of Shanghai. We thought about taking the bus - it's always cheaper than trains and you rarely need to book in advance - but by all reports Chinese buses are awful. Overcrowded and unsafe with karaoke videos blasting non-stop, windows…