China

The Reprint: ‘Mandarin Moves’

October 15, 2008

This week, The Reprint showcases the most unlikely insertion (pun intended) of words you could possibly imagine in a Lonely Planet Phrasebook.

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A Thousand Glorious Times

July 4, 2008

I’d seen him from a short distance, twelve months previously, he travelled alone aboard a plane to Moscow. He wore a dark tracksuit top zipped over a light t-shirt, and loose pale green shorts covered the knees he cradled by his chest. His hair sprayed out in loose brown curls beneath a khaki cap, highlighted […]

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To Songpan, and beyond!

September 24, 2007

Staring intimidatingly into two fresh black eyes, I barked menacingly, ‘reach for the sky!’. No response. I yelled, ‘this town aint big enough for the two of us’. Zip. ‘It’s not a laser. It’s a little light bulb that blinks’. Nothing. ‘Somebody’s poisoned the waterhole!’. Nada. ‘Who are you calling busted, Buster?’. Zippo. He just […]

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Answers on a Postcard

September 14, 2007

The red-faced King of the South paced nervously around his ageing palace, closely followed by a fidgeting guard. If either dared peer out through the ornate wooden shutters and across the blood-tainted river, they would of been overcome with terror. Advancing towards them at a frightful pace were a pair of canons in search of […]

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Bee for ‘Banna

September 3, 2007

My mother always insisted vegetables were good for me, so for 21 years I obediently munched my way through her gloomy carrots, sinewy runner beans, and even the odd heap of pungent spinach. Then I cut the apron strings, and for four years I phoned her weekly to ask her how to recreate the sloppy […]

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The Blind Leading the Blind

August 30, 2007

Reminiscent of time attempting to tick away on the novelty ‘Mao watch? Mao watch?‘ persistently being hawked in Tiananmen Square; time stood still this week. Any attempt to capture the period in a post, would be inaccurate and, akin to Mao’s arm weakly attempting to wave time away, I’d fail to do my subject justice. […]

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Why did the Chinaman cross the road?

August 23, 2007

I’ve been shocked many a time when using the internet, but the following session took me totally by surprise. I’d wrestled my way through a final round with the heavyweight Diaheorra Demon and was catching up on the latest football news, back in England. A soft whisper carried its way across the hostel, ‘Ant!’. My […]

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