Lowdown Leaves Qingdao

By Jonathan Chandler The Wild East Magazine Magpies… What was it? One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, hundreds of the frockers, a glut. A glut of magpies – building their intricate stick houses the size of an ayatollah’s turban, or a B52 beehive on the just-budding

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Fortune-telling Alive & Well in The Middle Kingdom

By Jonathan Chandler Exclusive to The Wild East Certain practices and “superstitions” were frowned upon, violently so, during the Cultural Revolution — a recent hiatus in China’s rich and ancient weave. But with the revival of Confucianism, along with the “opening-up,” a deep thirst for the old ways and the

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The Ox Year: From Under the Bund

This is part of an exclusive series by British novelist Jonathan Chandler, “Low on the Hai,” perspectives on China written by an insider.

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