No, today is not the birthday of the founding of Beijing. That happened too far back in history to be able to pinpoint a date. Recorded history goes back around 4000 years and Peking Man dates back more than 200,000 years. So why wish “Beijing” a “Happy Birthday?” Well, because it was 36 years ago […]
Memorial Cookies
As we were milling around the old Orthodox Church in Harbin on Sunday, an older Chinese woman came out of the church with a small bag of cookies in her hand. She came over to where we were standing and offered some to us. “It’s been12 years since our last priest passed away,” she said. […]
Beijing in Western Literature
One of my favorite books about my adopted home town, Beijing, is called Old Peking: City of the Ruler of the World, written by a New Zealand diplomat. It’s a collection of descriptions of Beijing written over the years (from the 1200’s to modern times) written by foreigners. Some of the more interesting entries are […]
“Midnight in Peking” in the US
Last October I wrote about a great murder mystery that I had read called “Midnight in Peking: How the Murder of a Young Englishwoman Haunted the Last Days of Old China,” by Paul French. At the time it was not yet available in the US. But that has changed with the release last week of […]
